Morphology

Morphology Core supports the Center projects’ need for morphological analysis while achieving net cost effectiveness. To achieve this goal, the Core will offer centralized, high-quality, specialized services for histological analysis, localization of intracellular proteins and inflammatory cells, and morphometric analysis of histological and immunohistochemical staining.

Professor Gary Kanel, Director for Morphology Core, USC, is an anatomic pathologist with 33+ years of experience in liver histopathology and pathophysiology and has been the Director of Autopsy Division of LA County-USC Hospital. He has provided morphologic services to the USC Research Center for Liver Diseases for more than twenty years and begun serving our center members in 2020. He blindly evaluates H&E, picrosirius red stained and IHC liver slides for systematic histologic scoring for key pathologic parameters such as micro- vs. macro-vesicular steatosis, neutrophilic vs. mononuclear cell inflammation, necrosis vs. apoptosis, ductular reaction, lipogranuloma, and pericellular, perisinusoidal, perivenular, and bridging fibrosis and spatial characterization of these changes. For HCC tissues, he provides histologic diagnosis and nuclear and architectural grading. The Core does not provide technical services for tissue embedding, sectioning, and staining as these services are readily available in each institution or outside vendors. The requesting investigators are responsible for obtaining stained liver section slides which can be submitted to Morphology Core via Administrative Core. He has evaluated total 359 slides for 9 center investigators plus the Animal Core to date since 2020. The Morphology Core is expected to e evaluate 150~200 slides per year. He also blindly evaluates and scores liver histology of the animal models produced by the Animal Core as part of its periodic quality control measure.