ADVANCED LABORATORY TECHNIQUES AT THE ARMED FORCES INSTITUTE OF PATHOLOGY APPLICABLE TO DIAGNOSIS AND RESEARCH IN DERMATOLOGY

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), located in the Walter Reed Army Medical center complex in Washington, DC, is well known for providing expert pathology consultations in many specialties and educational courses for civilian and military personnel. Some of the departments at the AFIP have also developed expertise in various advanced laboratory techniques for diagnosis and research. In dermatology, as in other fields of medicine, specialized laboratory methods (many of which are commonly included under the broad heading of molecular biology) are becoming more important in diagnosing individual cases and in furthering research in the cause/etiology and treatment of many diseases. These methods include combinations of standard molecular biology techniques that can be used for the identification of infectious organisms, diagnosis and classification of tumors, research into genetic changes of some tumors, and research related to underlying defects in some genetic diseases. In addition new biophysical methods promise to expand and improve our ability to "look" at a disease beyond what is now done with routine light microscopy and electron microscopy.