Sanford Barsky, MD, Chair
Faculty in the Department of Pathology are committed to furthering the understanding, knowledge, diagnosis and treatment of disease. They do this by educating students of all levels, conducting clinical, translational and basic research, and providing service to patients, the University and the community. Central tenets of this mission are mutual respect and citizenship by its faculty and staff, and the concept that excellence denotes exemplary achievements and continuous improvement of quality.
Ongoing Research Programs
- The Department’s Experimental Pathology branch is undergoing a major expansion in terms of faculty recruitment and space. Experimental pathology is defined as disease-oriented hypothesis testing or generating research. The progress of this discipline parallels The Ohio State University Medical Center’s Signature Programs in Cancer, Critical Care, Heart, Imaging, Neurosciences and Transplantation. In addition, within the Experimental Pathology branch are unique programs in image analysis and tissue banking.
Research Accomplishments of 2006
- To complement Ohio State’s interest in imaging and informatics, the Department has a major interest in digital pathology. Research initiatives included developing an inexpensive scanner that will revolutionize digital pathology, target motion analysis (TMA) algorithms that will automate TMA interpretation, and the creation of TMAker that will automate TMA construction.
- Another research achievement has been maintaining the Human Tissue Resource Network (HTRN), which collects, banks and distributes human tissue and fluid specimens for basic and translational research at Ohio State and associated clinical research programs throughout the United States. The HTRN consists of a prospective Tissue Procurement Service, Tissue Archive Service of diagnostic specimens, the Cancer and Leukemia Group B Pathology Coordinating Office, a Pathology Core Facility, the AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR), and an Adenoma Polyp Tissue Bank. HTRN services are funded by federal, corporate and Department research programs. Space support is provided by Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. More information about each service can be obtained through the Human Tissue Resource Network Web site.
- Department investigators continued studying tumor invasion and metastasis using a novel human xenograft model of inflammatory breast cancer and human cancer cell myoepithelial interactions.
- Ultraviolet (UV) carcinogenesis of squamous cell carcinoma (SCS) of the skin has been another area of research emphasis. Patients receiving solid organ transplants must undergo immunosuppressive therapy necessary to prevent their body from rejecting the new organ. Consequently, these patients are at a substantially increased risk to develop SCS. In fact, solid organ transplant recipients develop significantly more cases of SCC than the general population, and their tumors are more numerous and more aggressive. Pathology studies using the Skh-1 hairless mouse model of UVBinduced carcinogenesis demonstrated the importance of the CD4+ T cell in modulating the inflammatory response in the skin and in the development of UV-induced tumors. This cell type was chosen because immunosuppressive drugs modify its function.
- The Department’s studies of bacterial pathogenesis strive to understand the biochemical, molecular and cellular basis of diseases caused by multidrug resistant emerging gram-positive pathogens commonly encountered in hospital-acquired infection. The goal is to develop an antimicrobial therapy to counteract bacterial multi-drug resistance problems, including those caused by their biofilm formation on abiotic and host tissue surfaces.
