Residents utilize our state of the art laboratory facilities and other educational resources for clinical training and research.
The department is located in the Borwell Research and the Williamson Translational Research Buildings at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, contiguous with Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, Norris Cotton Cancer Care Pavilion Lebanon, and all conference and library facilities. The clinical laboratory is housed in 40,000 square feet of space on one floor of a modern building suffused with ambient natural light. Research is housed in many labs in the same and adjacent buildings.
- The Dartmouth College Rippel Light and Electron Microscope facility has transmission, analytical transmission, and scanning electron microscopes, with x-ray detector systems, bright field imaging, secondary backscatter, and other capabilities, including immunogold techniques. There is also video interface for digital imaging; advanced light microscope; and confocal and video imaging.
- The Clinical and Research Flow Cytometry Laboratories have several instruments involved in surface marker phenotyping, DNA content analysis, platelet-associated immunoglobulin assays, cell sorting and image analysis.
- The Clinical Genomics and Advanced Technologies (CGAT) lab provides testing in genetic, neoplastic, and infectious diseases. Gene rearrangement studies for leukemias and lymphomas are done by Southern blot or PCR methodology. Genetic disease testing includes presymptomatic diagnosis, carrier testing, and prenatal diagnosis for several disorders, either by direct detection of mutations or by linkage analysis. Viral and bacterial infections are diagnosed by PCR-based techniques.
- A full-service Cytogenetics Laboratory provides analyses of amniotic fluid for prenatal diagnosis, bone marrow for hematopoietic disorders, and peripheral blood cultures and skin fibroblasts for multiple congenital anomalies and other syndromes, including fragile-X. Fluorescence in situ hybridization is used investigationally in early prenatal screening for common aneuploidies and in marker detection.
- The Immunohistochemistry Laboratory uses a broad range of investigational and commercially available reagents and a spectrum of techniques for the evaluation of difficult differential diagnostic problems. The laboratory is engaged in collaborative efforts with numerous investigators, including the development of quantitative imaging techniques.
- The information resources of the department and the Dartmouth community include one of the largest microcomputer/minicomputer networks in the world. Each resident has a computer for access to the Internet, the laboratory network, the Medical Center's electronic medical records, the latest medical literature and several excellent interactive pathology teaching tools.
- The Cell Labeling Laboratory provides expertise in radiolabeling of blood cells for clinical and research purposes.
- The Cellular Therapy Laboratory provides processing and storage for hematopoietic stem cell units and expansion and differentiation of dendritic cells for use in adoptive immunotherapy protocols.
- The department library has a broad selection of pathology journals and an excellent collection of the latest texts and reference materials. Slide sets, recorded seminars, audiovisual materials, tumor classification monographs, files of referenced recent in-service examinations, and other collections are available for self-study. The Dartmouth Library system provides access to online journals at home or at the office.