Introduction: 20 Minute Online Course On Immunohistochemistry – Past – Present – Future
This online course and related exhibit cover the history of Immunohistochemistry (IHC) from the early 1970s through 2025 and beyond. BCS developed this course to educate the IHC community on the major milestones achieved in IHC testing during this period, including the importance of regulating IHC as an assay, which requires adoption of Calibration and Statistical Process Control for IHC testing.
The National Society for Histotechnology (NSH) invited BCS to show the exhibit and deliver the course in the NSH “lounge” at the NSH annual convention in Long Beach in September 2025. NSH gave education credit to any visitor who completed the course. Reviews of both the course content and delivery at the NSH convention were quite positive. Many individuals who completed the course requested that BCS post the course online, observing that they learned a great deal and that every histotechnologist and histotechnology student should be required to take the course.
BCS’ educational booth in the NSH ‘lounge’. The attendees (seated) borrow a BCS digital tablet, which has the self-paced recorded audio-visual course content. The course content is organized into 14 modules (along a timeline) that correspond to the booth panels.
The course is organized into three screens corresponding to sections of the timeline (Screen 1: Origins and Taming The IHC Wild West; Screen 2: Precision Medicine IHC and In Search of Standardization, and; Screen 3: Achieving True Accuracy). Start with Screen 1 and click on each box beginning with the box at the upper left. You will bring up audio-visual or visual content to review. Move through each upper and lower box from left to right. When you have reviewed all of the boxes on a screen, click on the right arrow at the bottom right of the screen to access the next screen and repeat the process. Enjoy the course.