Automated Histology System Wins Design Award

An automated histology platform for protein, DNA, and RNA testing has received an Excellence Award in the category of in vitro diagnostics in the 2001 Medical Design competition, sponsored by Cannon Communications.

Called BenchMark, the platform includes a reagent system and can perform immunohistochemistry (IHC) stains, in-situ hybridization (ISH) stains and fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) tests on tissue and cytologic patient samples for diagnosing cancer and infectious diseases. BenchMark was developed by Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (Tucson, AZ, USA). The company states it is the first histology instrument to automate the labor-intensive steps required in baking, dewaxing, cell conditioning, and staining tissue with the use of automated slide heaters and nontoxic aqueous reagents, without the use of any solvent.

"In fact, the BenchMark eliminates over 50 manual steps by automating the baking through staining process. For the first time, this process is performed easily, quickly, and without exposing laboratory staff to potentially toxic solvents,” said Kendall Hendrick, vice president of research and development at Ventana.



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