CELLEUROPE Immunohistochemistry Workshop: 20th – 22nd October, 2014
From L-R Marsela Qesari (Celleurope ER); Margherita Boirei (Celleurope ESR); Moyassar Al-Shaibani (PhD Newcastle); Monica Reis (Celleurope ESR); Rihab Gam(Celleurope ESR);, Shaheda Ahmed (Alcyomics Ltd)
The workshop took place within Newcastle University, Institute of Cellular Medicine and it was very valuable in bringing different organisations together to establish basic knowledge about immunohistochemistry. The workshop was held over two days and incorporated both theory and practical sessions. Our group was made of up Celleurope Marie Curie fellows and PhD students from the Haematological Sciences department.
Mrs Edith Fick (Senior Engineer, department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Bergen, Norway) gave an introduction to the basics of immunohistochemistry (IHC), explaining the different steps ranging from the processing of tissue, the selection of appropriate reagents until the interpretation of the stained tissue sections. We practiced this during the laboratory session with Dr Shaheda Ahmed (Alcyomics Ltd) who successfully lead to the session, showing us how to apply the IHC protocol on skin slides and learn the difference between the manually applied protocol and the automated system used within Haematological sciences, Newcastle University.
Professor Anne Dickinson (Professor of Marrow Transplant Biology, Newcastle University, UK and Director, Alcyomics Ltd) gave an excellent talk about the Skin Explant Assay development for predicting and investigating Graft versus Host Disease (GvHD) and presented the use and application of this model along with some of the recent achievements that Alcyomics Ltd, in collaboration with Newcastle University, reached in the field of GvHD. Mrs Jean Norden (Senior Biomedical Scientist, Haematological Sciences, Newcastle University, UK), an expert in the field of Molecular biology, detailed the different applications of the Skin Explant Assay showing promising results of the use of this model in the field of GvHD.
Professor Lisbet Sviland (Adjunct Professor, University of Bergen, Norway) presented the pathology of acute graft versus host disease and showed images of the histology of GvHD in different tissue types and their related diagnosis. I really enjoyed the cell imaging session led by Prof Sviland during which we were given the opportunity to read our slides stained during the practical session and also to grade different clinical slides for GvHD. We would like to believe that we are now ‘experts’ in grading skin GvHD!
To focus on the Newcastle experience, Dr Xiao Nong Wang (Senior Lecturer, Haematological Sciences, Newcastle University, UK) gave a presentation about the impact of IHC and IF (immunofluorescence) on GvHD research. In the first part of her talk, Dr Wang explained the use of a skin explant model and IHC staining to study the mechanism of T regulatory cells mediated GVHD protection and in a second part, detailed the use of immunofluorescence whole mount staining to study human cutaneous GVHD. Dr Wang also presented some of the many impressive IF images that she likes to take, both for the sake of research and as a hobby also!
Dr Rachel Crossland (Research Associate, Haematological Sciences, Newcastle University, UK) focused on the molecular biology related to the formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues broadening our ideas about how to unlock our FFPE archives and exploit the samples to a maximum level.
In my opinion, the workshop was excellent. There was a wide range of presentations and all the attendees were given the opportunity for hands on learning and practical application of theoretical content.
Written by: Early Stage Marie Curie Researcher #1 – Rihab Gam- based at Newcastle University, UK.
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