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Medical university and histology department started together in Timisoara because the first dean of the university, professor Serban Bratianu, was also the first head of the histology department. Today, after 72 years, this history repeats itself:the medical school in Timisoara is led by a histologist too! The work with students and research came together in our department, professor Bratianu having several contacts with famous scientists from outside, especially with those of french medical school. Professor Bratianu spent a lot of time in the research labs from Paris and Strasboug and was quickly adopted by french people who named him „Bratiano”. With this name he is still found in all electronic historical archives. More than 10 articles of professor Bratianu are mentioned on PubMed, unfortunately not those from period spent in Timisoara. Some ideas of professor Bratianu as immunity in cancer or viral involvement in carcinogenesis are considered nowadays as revolutionary topics in the field. Life forced professor Bratianu to move to Iassy and histology was really “governed” by women who were mainly focused on teaching except professor Maria Dragan who, somehow, revigorated research which continues today. Slowly, present histology in Timisoara turns to become more than a preclinical subject being focused on multidsciplinary approach of normal and tumor tissues from microscopic to molecular level. Angiogenesis Research Center and Lab of Molecular Pathology are two of the newest part of histology in Timisoara organized by the present head of the histology department. Also,the volunteering program VADA helps us to find as soon as possible students who teach students and who are interested to continue their future career in academic and research fields. Beyond appearances, each member of the histology department hides some funny life stories, most of them related to their way through histology or their extracurricular activities. Together with the serious part of it, histology from Timisoara will be described here as being scenic and full color histology beyond the lens of the microscope!

Breast cancer (BrCa) is the most frequent neoplastic disease in female. A lot of efforts were done in order to make an early diagnosis, to test new regimens of chemotherapy, and to identify new targets for therapy. All these were the consequence of the high rate of specific morbidity and mortality which continue to increase. Drug resistance and escape from therapy are well documented, and are associated to low overall survival. An important step has been achieved almost two decades ago, when a new classification of BrCa has been introduced. The molecular classification was based on the gene analysis profile, and immunohistochemistry has been shown to be a good surrogate. This was a very important observation, because in this way the molecular classification can be largely applied in clinical practice, and virtually, today all labs of pathology evaluate minimum the expression of hormone receptors, HER2 and Ki67. Based on these methods, hormone therapy and treatment with trastuzumab became an efficient reality. By tradition and protocol, these methods were particularly done in specimens of primary tumors – frequently removed at the time of molecular diagnosis. Until 2010, lymph node metastasis (LNM) were really forgotten if not excluded from this evaluation. Just scattered studies have shown significant differences between the molecular profile of primary tumor, LNM and distant metastasis. Taken together, these differences account for almost 20%, and strongly influence the natural evolution of BrCa, and the response to specific therapeutic strategies. Virtually, there is a lack of large studies (if any) concerning a comparison between the primary tumor and corresponding lymph node metastasis. Discrepancies could explain, at least in part, drug resistance or hormone therapy “escape”. We have investigated a large series of patients with BrCa and LNM, applying an extended panel of markers that allow the full characterization of the molecular type in both primary tumor and LNM. We found HER2 as the most stable subtype, without significant conversion. The most unstable was luminal A subtype, associated with luminal B or even basal-like molecular subtype in the LMN. Overall, cross-match between primary tumor and corresponding LNM was found in 76% of the cases. Our data strongly support the application of immunohistochemical methods in all specimens surgically removed, because the prognosis could be worse looking only to LNM profile. This is actually a first step to personalized therapy in breast cancer.

Usually, RNA extractions from FFPE specimens have been performed by collecting the tissues based on usually sectioning or by laser capture microdissection followed by RNA extraction manually performed. In most cases the RNA quantity is too low for reverse transcription and real time polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR). Several reasons have been discussed to be responsible for the fail of a proper RNA extraction from FFPE specimens, from the tisular damage caused by formalin to the nuclear integrity or the age of the paraffin blocks. MATERIAL AND METHODS. We performed a fully automated workflow of RNA extraction, based on automated tissue microarray (TMA) specimens collection followed by magnetic beads based purification technology on 36 randomly choosed archival specimens of kidney cancer. The unique variable of the procedure was the core numbers. RESULTS. From all specimens of 4 cores group RNA was succesfully extracted, its concentration ranging between 1350 to 9420 ng/ml. Eight out of 24 specimens of 2 cores groups (30%) showed detectable levels of RNA (ranged between 460 to 3420 ng/ml), 70 % of them being out of standard range. There is a statistically significant difference (P-value = 0,00002) between the number of cores (4 versus 2) and RNA concentration. CONCLUSIONS. Age of the specimens or formalin do not influence High Sensitivity RNA concentration extracted from FFPE specimens. TMA image-guided coring preserves nuclear integrity and thus may improve RNA extraction. RNA concentration may be also improved by association of the automated image guided coring with semi automated magnetic beads based techniques and by adjusting core numbers.

From the beginning of the 20th Century, scientific interest for animal tumor models has continuously grown. Early works confirmed tumorigenic effect of many animal viruses, parasites, chemicals like tar, smoke and many others. Influences of animal species and their immune status have also a great impact. Our laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad introduced tumor models in teaching process for students on the bachelor degree and PhD level. We used models as spontaneous tumors in laboratory animals, chemically induced tumors, and transplanted tumors for demonstration of drug effects and some immune mechanisms in tumor biology. From spontaneous tumors we examined micemammary carcinoma, mice lymphoma, hedgehog ovarian carcinoma, and dog prostate hyperplasia. For chemically induction of neoplasia we used 4-NQO in mice and produced squamous carcinoma of the tongue. In the group of transplanted tumors, we used Ehrlich carcinoma in mice and BHK 21C13 sarcoma in diverse species of hamsters and mice. Tested drugs were thalidomide, dexamethason, heparin, metformin, doxorubicin, podoplanin. At this moment, examination of favorable effects of immobilization stress on tumor growth is in progress. Spontaneous and chemically induced tumors need time for growth and their appearance is rare. Because of that, formation of experimental groups is very complicated. We conclude that model of BHK 21C13 cell culture induced sarcoma in Syrian hamsters is the best model, easy reproducible and without influence of host immune mechanisms.