The Journal of Histotechnology 2022 NSH convention issue

The National Society for Histotechology has always had a convention issue as a hand out to attendees and for NSH members to pick up extra copies. It is nice to know this will happen in 2022 after the 2020 and 2021 virtual conventions. 2022 has been a productive year for JOH with good news that the 2021 Impact Factor is 1.918 and has more than doubled from 0.714 in 2020. This is a good indicator that JOH is doing very well and being recognized with more citations. It no doubt was helped by the fact JOH is now on Pubmed/Medline. For all of those who submitted and now have publications in JOH, you have my heartiest thank you for making the journal more successful than ever in the scientific and medical communities. In my thanks, I also include our peer reviewers and the JOH Editorial Board members. If you want to learn more about journal metrics, go to the JOH website https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation and read why metrics is an important tool for for both readers and authors. This issue has articles which deal with three practical issues so often found in an everyday working histology laboratory. Questions concerning cell block preparation are frequently seen on The Block. This is addressed by Clif Chapman in his paper showing an ‘innovative’ standardized method for a cell block procedure and preparation, processing and staining. This paper is well illustrated with photographs and images of sections from these cell blocks. One problem that confronts histotechnicians, often on a daily basis, is poor paraffin processing that requires using a ‘reprocessing’ method to recover valuable tissue in order to have a proper diagnosis. Lunetta and colleagues did a careful study to recreate poor processing and then comparing two reprocessing methods commonly used by laboratories. This is a nice review of the two known reprocessing methods but more important was the simulation of poor processing then performing the reprocessing with the two methods. The evaluation and comparison of the two methods at microtomy and with staining is well documented along with photomicrographs of stained tissue sections both before and after reprocessing. This paper can provide guidelines and aid in choosing a reprocessing method for any histology laboratory. Jeana Earn provided a paper exploring the gap in the OSHA laboratory standard using a literature review along with recommendations to enhance laboratory safety practice. The topic is specific for volatile hazardous chemicals with emphasis on xylene, the importance of good laboratory practices (GLP) and the being familiar with agencies that provide guidelines. Although many histology personnel are already familiar with the OSHA standard, this is a good review to remind laboratory personnel that good safety practices in the histology laboratory are necessary to protect the health of workers especially histotechnicians. The paper on sampling of placentas to diagnose Plasmodium falciparium, the parasite that causes malaria in humans, is very interesting. Vincenz and associates established a new method to collect samples from a West African country, a low resource setting, where the disease is endemic then preserve, identify the parasite and analyze nucleic acids. The logistics alone for shipping frozen samples on dry ice to Michigan is just one part of the story. Tissue section preparation staining, and subsequent use of RNAscope® fluorescence in situ hybridization for two RNA markers is elegant. The FFPE tissue sections stained with Giemsa show different stages of the parasite, in particular the curved gametocyte. For anyone interested in this protozoan parasite, these photo images are educational to show morphology of the stages. One gametocyte image was selected to be the issue Cover Page. Thank you goes out to the authors of these papers. Coming in December, 2022 will be the special issue on ocular tissue to celebrate the 45^th anniversary of the Journal of Histotechnology. For those working with eyes, this issue promises to be very informative. Best of all is the fact the NSH annual convention in Reno has returned to in person attendance so we can once again enjoy one on one interaction with presenters and close friends. See you in Reno this October.