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.