NSW Health Pathology’s Concord laboratory is celebrating the arrival of a brand-new electron microscope, which will help pathologists and scientists more easily and effectively diagnose renal disease.

Clin­i­cal Direc­tor, Assoc Pro­fes­sor Charles Chan said elec­tron microscopy plays an essen­tial role in the diag­no­sis of kid­ney diseases.

“The elec­tron micro­scope trans­mits a beam of elec­trons through ultra­thin sec­tions of tis­sue spec­i­mens to pro­duce high-res­o­lu­tion mag­ni­fied images. With its inte­grat­ed high-res­o­lu­tion cam­era, it can “see” with 1,000 to 100,000 times mag­ni­fi­ca­tion which allows it to look at extreme­ly small struc­tures,” A/Prof Chan said.

“It allows us to take a look inside cells and their sur­round­ings in a kid­ney biop­sy at high mag­ni­fi­ca­tion and see exact­ly what the patho­log­ic defect is and its spe­cif­ic loca­tion – which means a more defin­i­tive diag­no­sis and treat­ment options for renal dis­ease patients.”

The Elec­tron Microscopy Unit at Con­cord Hos­pi­tal is our statewide refer­ral ser­vice for elec­tron microscopy and is the largest diag­nos­tic ser­vice of its kind in Aus­tralia. NSW Health Pathol­o­gy labs at Liv­er­pool and West­mead also sup­port this vital statewide ser­vice. At Con­cord, we receive spec­i­mens from across NSW and ACT as well as many inter­na­tion­al­ly from New Zealand, New Cale­do­nia and Fiji.

“The high­ly skilled team process­es and report approx­i­mate­ly 2,200 cas­es annu­al­ly and this num­ber is grow­ing by over nine per cent each year against a back­ground of increased chron­ic dis­eases in the pop­u­la­tion. In fact, our work­load has more than dou­bled over the last 10 years,” A/Prof Chan said.

“The use of elec­tron microscopy has evolved over the years, with advanc­ing med­ical knowl­edge and the chang­ing inci­dence of dis­eases. The abil­i­ty of the elec­tron micro­scope to iden­ti­fy minute struc­tur­al changes with­in and around abnor­mal cells makes it a pow­er­ful tech­nique to char­ac­terise and diag­nose an increas­ing num­ber of new­ly recog­nised dis­eases,” he said.

Con­cord now has two elec­tron micro­scopes, which allows for improved work­flow and more effi­cient turn­around times of diagnoses.

“With two elec­tron micro­scopes, scientists/pathologists can view cas­es simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, which will improve our over­all turn­around times,” he said.

“We will also be able to con­tin­ue work­ing and report­ing cas­es in the event that one instru­ment is under­go­ing rou­tine main­te­nance or repair.”

Concord’s Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry Man­ag­er Andrew Kennedy said anoth­er impor­tant improve­ment for staff was the enhanced workstation.

“The space has been ergonom­i­cal­ly designed and is more com­fort­able for lab staff who may be required to sit work­ing at the instru­ment for many hours each day,” Andrew said.

The new elec­tron micro­scope was fund­ed by NSW Health Pathol­o­gy to the tune of $700,000 and minor cap­i­tal works were under­tak­en to upgrade the room hous­ing the instru­ment and attached plant equip­ment. The space has cli­mate con­trol air con­di­tion­ing, plumb­ing, elec­tri­cal works, floor­ing and fresh painting.

And no, it doesn’t have a name yet… the team wants to get to know it bet­ter first!

Meet the team work­ing behind the Elec­tron Microscope

The role of an elec­tron microscopy sci­en­tist requires a unique set of skills. The role cov­ers skills of both a sci­en­tif­ic and tech­ni­cal nature and requires great atten­tion to detail and inter­pre­tive skills which are acquired pre­dom­i­nant­ly through on-the-job training.

For renal biop­sies, it typ­i­cal­ly takes three years to become pro­fi­cient in the diag­no­sis of renal dis­ease using elec­tron microscopy with more com­plex spec­i­men types requir­ing longer peri­ods of training.

It can take entire careers to devel­op the knowl­edge and skills to inter­pret many ultra­struc­tur­al fea­tures in many dif­fer­ent types of tis­sues, so our skilled team are for­ev­er learn­ing and devel­op­ing as scientists.

We have five high­ly trained and ded­i­cat­ed med­ical lab­o­ra­to­ry sci­en­tists employed in the elec­tron microscopy unit and all sev­en staff spe­cial­ists rou­tine­ly report all renal biopsies.

Stephanie Sampe­dro is the senior sci­en­tist in charge of sec­tion in elec­tron microscopy; and three staff spe­cial­ists, A/Prof Charles Chan (AP Clin­i­cal Direc­tor), Dr Renee Chan and Dr Ivan Canoy rou­tine­ly report oth­er spec­i­men types such as skin, mus­cle, nerve, nasal cil­ia and platelets.

The team from NSW Health Pathology’s Elec­tron Microscopy Unit at Con­cord. Left to Right: Rox­ana Tsui, Stephanie Sampe­dro, Lau­ren Lums­den, Beba Attia, Sophi Kc, Dr Ivan Canoy. Front row:  A/Prof Charles Chan, Dr Renee Chan.

Past and present team reunite to check out the new technology

Con­cord Laboratory’s Elec­tron Microscopy Unit recent­ly host­ed a morn­ing tea to cel­e­brate the arrival of the new elec­tron micro­scope. Past and present staff mem­bers were among the spe­cial guests.

It was also a chance for all those involved in the order­ing, com­mis­sion­ing and build­ing works to come togeth­er to see the results of all their hard work.

Many peo­ple – from pathol­o­gists, sci­en­tists, tech­ni­cal offi­cers, plan­ning, eHealth, ICT, pro­cure­ment and finance have been instru­men­tal in sup­port­ing the unit and its emer­gent role as both a statewide and inter­na­tion­al refer­ral ser­vice for Elec­tron Microscopy.

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