This company was started in July 2002 for the purpose of bringing these new methods of preparation of tissues for frozen sections to my colleagues in pathology. I have been practicing surgical pathology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey for 22 years. The pathologists cut the frozen sections at our hospital. Over the years I have been confronted numerous times with impossible embedding tasks. I have been swamped with specimens on a daily basis, forced to wait and watch as I applied the heat extractor weight to each block. Over the past 10 years I have been working on methods to overcome these difficult situations. Much of this has been accomplished with tools in my basement. The result of these efforts are this simple set of apparatus which we have used in our hospital with great success for the last 7 years.

          All of the manufacturing of this apparatus is done locally in the USA and I have to thank these terrific manufactures who have helped me get started by trying to keep the costs down in such small numbers. All of the freezing apparatus and chucks are made of stainless steel and are pretty much indestructible. Stainless steel is very hard and expensive to machine. I have priced these items as low as possible. It would have been much less expensive to make the chucks from aluminum but it does not have the same freezing capacity. Aluminum is warmed by the embedding medium rather than to freeze it.

         Would we ever consider paraffin embedding tissue by putting the tissue on a chuck, dripping wax on it and squashing it with a weight? My goal is to get users to realize this is the way it should have been done 100 years ago, and maybe the cryostat manufacturers will follow suit. Then I can go back to a normal lifestyle.

           This company consists of me, my wife and a couple of pets barking in the background. Right now my facility consists of a lot of large shelves in what was my study, a desk in the family room where Jeannine works and  the workshop in my basement where I have been doing some of the final finishing duties. So if you are wondering why you may get an answering machine if you call, my wife may be picking up the kids.

I have made this all sound pretty high tech....don't ya think?   

Some of the best things are home grown. I am pretty sure most people who give it a serious trial will not look forward to going back to conventional methods. And if the world of pathology still wants to accept frozen section as a inferior technique fraught with limitations......at least I still have my day job!

2005 Update:

           Well we are still here! I am happy to say the Precision Cryoembedding System is being used in almost 400 hospitals now. Many of them are major academic institutions research facilities and biotech companies. We are getting a lot of additional orders and referrals to other hospitals. I take this as a sign that my customers are appreciating the advantages of preparing frozen sections using these simple techniques.

             I am very exited to say that others companies have expressed interest in promoting the Precision Cryoembedding System.

Leica Microsystems is offering the system as an accessory in their cryostats and others,  and is making the system available throughout the world.  I have always been a big fan of their cryostats and microscopes. For me this is an honor. I give them a lot of credit, they are able to recognize new ideas worth exploring. 

Pacific Southwest Lab Equipment Inc. is also offering the system to their US customers. 

I really appreciate these companies helping me to bring these techniques to our colleagues. I know it is a change from our present methods. But I am confident anyone who is willing to try something new will be rewarded with dramatic improvements in their ability to provide these important results to patients and surgeons. And for my colleagues who have passed these techniques to others, I am indebted.

 2006 Update

The Precision Cryoembedding System is now being used in over 500  institutions and growing. I continue to received very positive feedback from users of our system. I am confident that our efforts are being appreciated. I am happy to say Dae Myung Science Company is now offering our products to their customers in S. Korea.

We will be adding a small increase to our prices in 2007 to keep up with costs. My wife Jeannine and I continue to run this business from our home with little overhead allowing us to keep our  prices at a minimum. Our profits have been modest, but we remain in the green on a mission to bring these new and better methods to the  fields of pathology, histology and scientific research.

I truly appreciate the help of our customers and distributors in helping to spread these new methods to  our colleagues.

2009 Update

Our system has found it's way into about 1000 institutions, including hospitals, dermatologic surgery practices and many research institutions. We have customers on 6 continents. We continue to receive numerous wonderful letters from users who are appreciating the advantages of the Precision Cryoembedding System and are grateul to them for taking the time to try something new.  We continue to work closely with Leica Microsystems and also distribute through Fisher Scientific, and a number of regional histology equipment suppliers. Leica has incorporated our system into the excellent new CM 1950 cryostat which I am proud to say I was asked to provide input in the  design process. I have also recently submitted a book to Springer Verlag  titled "a Practical Guide to Frozen Section Technique" which I am hoping to see in print around the end of the year. The book contains everything I have learned about frozen section technique from grossing to reading the slides over 26 years of surgical pathology practice. It also contains chapters on Mohs technique by the great teacher of Mohs technique, Barbara Beck, animal research techniques by  noted expert Dr Charles  Scouten and a chapter on understanding the cryostat by Philip Hyam who spent his career in the cryostat industry with Leica in Canada.

My wife Jeannine who has always cared for the bookwork side of our little mission has begun joining me on exhibits now that the kids are off to college. She is an enormous help and can breaks down our booth like she is doing the dishes. I have to keep out of her way. We are receiving more and more new customers as referrals and as users change positions. We have also had several articles written independently by users wanting to share our advances with colleagues and are very grateful for all of our family of users who have helped us to spread the word of the value of these new techniques.

2011 Update

Still here and growing. There are now somewhere in the range of 1500 institutions using the Precision Cryoembedding System at this point. We continue to partner with Leica Biosystems who has been a strong supporter of our technology since our start. We are grateful to them and am happy to be sharing with their customers around the world. We are also grateful to Fischer Scientific, Pacific Southwest Instrument Company, and Belair Scientific who continue  to help us share our techniques. We are delighted to add Electron Microscopy Sciences  and Immunohistochemistry.com to our family who are also now sharing in our mission.

I am proud to say our apparatus continues to be manufactured locally, by Dualtron Manufacturing of West Babylon, NY. From the beginning their president saw the importance in what we were doing and made us whatever we needed in quantities we could afford.

It is now becoming more obvious that our methods are spreading on their own. As new residents trained in our methods emerge, they are bringing these techniques to there new practices. As our users change positions, they bring it to their new sites. I believe the seeds we have planted are growing nicely. Thank you to all our customers who help us share these techniques with colleagues.

I  am happy to say I have transitioned from the community to academia in 2009 when I took the position of Director of Surgical Pathology at University Hospital, Newark and University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. I have found the teaching environment very stimulating. Surrounded by hungry young minds and awesome cases at  another level of difficulty,  I am learning as much as I am teaching. It is wonderful to be able  to share what one has learned.

And speaking of sharing, my true partner and wonderful wife of 36 years, Jeannine continues to increasingly share the duties at PI. I could not do this without her. And if you are wondering how we can sell chucks made from stainless steal for the same price as our our competitors sell chucks  made from aluminum, it is because we do it all our selves.