SUP Companion Meeting at USCAP February 2005: Resounding Success: Mesotheliomas, Mesothelial Proliferations and Their Mimics

The 2005 SUP Companion Meeting was quite successful. The entire spectrum of mesotheliomas and mesothelial proliferations were covered by Sam Hammar, Josep Lloreta-Trull, Victor Roggli and John Hicks. The attendees has the opportunity to appreciate the complementary role of ultrastructure, immunocytochemistry and analytical SEM in accurately separating mesotheliomas, mesothelial proliferations and their mimics. The current biologic, cytogenetic and molecular factors in mesotheliomas was reviewed and provided insight into the pathogenesis and treatment targets for these highly aggressive neoplasms.

The proceedings from the Companion Meeting will be submitted to Ultrastructural Pathology for publication in due course.

The Renal Pathology Society (RPS) enthusiastically embraced the idea of a Combined SUP-RPS Companion Meeting for the 2006 USCAP meeting to be held in New Orleans (Feb 12, 2006). Josep Lloreta-Trull (Program Director for 2006 and 2007 and President-Elect) will be developing the program with the RPS program committee. David Howell and Guillermo Herrera have kindly volunteered to assist with the program development.

The SUP and RPS membership has voiced a concern, in the past and currently, regarding the fact that both the SUP and RPS companion meetings are held on Sunday mornings at USCAP. The SUP Council will be addressing this issue with the USCAP Administration.

The program committee for SUP is exploring an EM/Ultrastructural Pathology Companion Meeting at the IAP in 2006. It is hoped that the SUP can enlist and involve the EM Working Group (http://interpath1.uio.no/esp/emwg/index.htm) from the European Society of Pathology. Information regarding this will be forthcoming.

The Pathologist-in-Training (PITA) Committee, headed by Elba Turbat-Herrera, had several posters in competition for the award. The announcement regarding the winner will be posted on the SUP website (http://sup.ultrakohl.com/) in the near future.

Encourage your residents and fellows to submit abstracts to the USCAP for the SUP PITA Award competition and also designate the ultrastructural category on the abstract submission form.

As always, attending faculty and practicing pathologists are encouraged to submit abstracts to the Ultrastructural Section of the USCAP/IAP.

The more abstracts submitted, the greater the likelihood that the Ultrastructural Pathology Section will have a platform session. The visibility of Ultrastructural Pathology is dependent upon the SUP membership (that means you) in order to promote the benefit of ultrastructure in day to day diagnosis in surgical pathology and autopsy practice.

You won't want to miss this meeting. Jerry Simmons (jsimmons@lcmpath.com) has been steadily working on what will prove to be a most informative and enjoyable gathering of ultrastructural pathologists. Jerry has already coined a title for UltraPath XIII: "Frontiers in Ultrastructural Pathology". Jerry has put together an impressive social program that incorporates the flavor of South Dakota. The conference hotel can be viewed at its website (http://www.alexjohnson.com/).

SUP wishes to express its gratitude to Jerry for hosting UltraPath XIII. We all appreciated the hard work that goes into hosting this meeting.

David would be happy to entertain proposals for UltraPath XV in 2010 and future UltraPath meetings. If you are interested in hosting such a meeting, feel free to contact David (dhowell@duke.edu).

Submissions to the Ultrastructural Pathology journal (SUP's journal) are always encouraged. Also, citing papers published in Ultrastructural Pathology in your manuscripts published within Ultrastructural Pathology, as well as in other journals, increases the impact factor and visibility of Ultrastructural Pathology. Feel free to contact Jahn Nesland (j.m.nesland@medisin.uio.no) or Allan Tucker (atucker@usouthal.edu) if you have questions regarding the submission process for Ultrastructural Pathology.

Share your work, expertise and knowledge with SUP members throughout the world via the printed version and electron version of Ultrastructural Pathology.

Subscription rates are discounted for SUP members. (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01913123.asp)

Encourage your institution and hospital to subscribe in order to allow electronic access to the journal at you facility.

After much effort and updating by Irv Dardick, the Primer of Diagnostic Electron Microscopy is available for purchase. A portion of the proceeds go to the SUP for its educational, service and research missions.

The price for the CD-ROM version is $60.00 (US) plus shipping and handling and it can be purchased online at: http://www.pathologyimagesinc.com/cd-rom-sales.html
A link to sample pages on this web page will provide a preview of the layout and content.

If you have comments regarding the CD-ROM Primer, please forward those to Irv Dardick. If you would like to contribute material to the Primer for future revisions, contact Irv Dardick (idardick@pathologyimagesinc.com).

Download a PDF file for printing and posting on bulletin boards or email this PDF file as an attachment (after saving it to your hard-drive) to Residents and Registrars in Pathology Training programs, as well as fellows, faculty, residency directors and departmental chairs. The file is available at: http://www.pathologyimagesinc.com/pdf-file/primer-sup1.pdf

Thanks to the efforts of Karlene Hewan-Lowe and Irv Dardick the SUP website has been extensively updated and will have more updates in the near future. Karlene and Irv are to congratulated on an excellent resource for our SUP members. Visit the website at http://sup.ultrakohl.com/

Feel free to contact your SUP Councilors, the President-Elect, President or Immediate Past President regarding any issues. Email addresses are available at the SUP Website. http://sup.ultrakohl.com/

Renal Pathology Society (RPS): Website and Membership Information
There is a great deal of synergism between the daily practice of and research involving ultrastructural pathology and renal pathology. The Renal Pathology Society is a very active organization and intimately involved with ultrastructural pathology. A limited number of SUP members also hold membership within the Renal Pathology Society. The low level of "co-membership" in SUP and RPS has been a major factor in not allowing the SUP and RPS companion meetings to be moved so as not to be in direct competition with one another. The SUP Executive Council will petition the USCAP/IAP office in an attempt to change the time and/or day for the SUP or RPS companion meeting to avoid overlapping of these 2 important companion meetings for individuals interested in Ultrastructural and Renal Pathology.

If you are actively involved in ultrastructural examination of kidney biopsies or responsible for renal pathology at your institution, you are encouraged to join the RPS. The RPS membership chair is Maria Picken (SUP and RPS member). Her email is mpicken@lumc.edu.

The RPS website may be viewed at http://www.renalpathsoc.org.

In addressing the RPS business meeting, the SUP President also called for RPS members to join SUP. There is strength in numbers!!

Society for Cutaneous Ultrastructure Research (32nd Annual Meeting of SCUR)is
scheduled to take place June 2-5, 2005 in HAMBURG, Germany. It is held as a Joint Meeting with the ISP (Int. Soc. of Skin Pharmacology and Physiology).

Deadline for submission of abstracts is the 2nd of April 2005 (date of postmark).

Preliminary informations (programme, accommodation, etc.) can be obtained by
e-mail-request to: Dr. Sonja Stander SCUR-Board Member at sonja.staender@uni-muenster.de or Dr. Roger Wepf, Local Organizer at Roger.Wepf@beiersdorf.com

Information will also be available at the SCUR website which should be updated
soon and contain specific information about the 2005 SCUR meeting):
http://orgs.dermis.net/content/e04scur/e01aims/e149/index_ger.html
Contact person:

Dr. Wolfgang MUSS (Ph. D.)
Salzburg General Hospital
[German: Salzburger Landeskliniken SALK-SJS
(St. Johann's Hospital) ]
Institute of Pathological Anatomy
[German: Institut fuer anatomische Pathologie]
Head of EM-Laboratory (Lab. for Electron Microscopy)
Muellner Hauptstrasse 48
A-5020 SALZBURG
AUSTRIA/Europe
phone: ++43++ 662 + 4482 + 4720 Ext
fax: ++43++ 662 + 4482 + 882 Ext. (please only "c/o W.MUSS")
e-mail:W.Muss@SALK.at

Best Regards, John Hicks, SUP President for 2004-2006