Aperio Technologies Inc and the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathologists (USCAP) announce a partnership to digitize, archive, and make publicly available online, at no cost to the pathology community, the Dr Juan Rosai Collection of Surgical Pathology Seminars.
“The preservation of the Juan Rosai collection provides the pathology community with an invaluable historical reference and insight into how pathology has evolved over time”
Dr Rosai, a world-renowned expert and consultant in surgical pathology, has maintained an extensive glass slide seminar series collection inherited from the late Lauren V. Ackerman, MD, a leader in the discipline of surgical pathology. The collection consists of almost 20,000 cases originally presented at more than 1,400 pathology seminars, and comprises digital images of the original slides, clinical history, and diagnostic summaries, along with present day commentary by Rosai and other experts.
“It is my honor to work with the USCAP and Aperio to make freely available to the international pathology community the digital version of this historical collection,” said Rosai. “Pathologists spanning the globe can access the collection to learn about the evolution of surgical pathology thinking, as described and discussed at pathology meetings over the past 60 years and sponsored by national and regional pathology societies, individual medical centers, and other pathology groups.”
Victor Reuter, former president of the USCAP and vice chair of the Department of Pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, commented, “Dr Rosai has served as an inspiration to thousands of pathologists throughout the world for many decades. He epitomizes everything that morphology has contributed to the understanding of disease across many disciplines. A masterful teacher, it should not surprise us that he has maintained this collection over the years and has now chosen to share it with the global pathology community. I congratulate Aperio and USCAP for supporting this project that is sure to have profound educational and historical importance.”
The seminar series format for the review of surgical pathology is designed to give pathologists the opportunity to examine the same material that has been utilized by leading experts for case evaluation. Virtually every great American surgical pathologist has participated in the pathology seminars, including Arthur Purdy Stout, Lauren Ackerman, Robert Scully, and Averill Liebow, among others.
To develop the archive, Aperio will provide its industry leading instruments and software tools, as well as funding required to digitize all pathology slides from the seminar series. The digital slides will be accessible at no cost to the pathology community via SecondSlide™, Aperio’s innovative digital slide sharing service (www.secondslide.com).
The USCAP will invest in the creation of a custom-built website that will dynamically interact and interface with the digital slide collection to provide diagnostic and historical context, and interactive learning tools. The permanent digital archive is anticipated to be completed by early 2011. Once completed, the collection will be made permanently available on www.uscap.org.
“The preservation of the Juan Rosai collection provides the pathology community with an invaluable historical reference and insight into how pathology has evolved over time,” said Jared N. Schwartz, CMO of Aperio. “We are honored to work with Dr. Rosai and the USCAP to create a decision support resource that the pathology community can access anytime, anywhere to advance scientific knowledge.”
Source: Aperio and USCAP
