In this month's "Hot Topic," Nicole Boczek, Ph.D., assistant professor and laboratory director in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, and Sarah Barnett, M.S., CGC, discuss diagnostic exploratory testing, explain why it’s important to the field of many specialty practice areas, and help determine which testing may be the most valuable for a given patient.

In this month's "Hot Topic," Megan Hoenig, M.S., M.P.H., CGC, a licensed and certified genetic counselor with the Division of Laboratory Genetics and Genomics at Mayo Clinic Laboratories, describes the principles and benefits of Familial Variant Targeted Testing (FMTT).

In this month's "Hot Topic," Patricia Greipp, D.O., discusses fluorescence in situ hybridization, or FISH testing, particularly related to pediatric patients with hematologic malignancies.

PACE / State of FLIn this month’s “Virtual Lecture,” David Murray, M.D., Ph.D., discusses how immunoglobin light chains are used to detect overexpressed immunoglobins which can be applied to distinguish patients with plasma cell disorders and more.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Anne Tebo, Ph.D., discusses recent updates in the testing for anti-SS-A/Ro antibodies in systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases.

In this month's "Hot Topic," Melissa Snyder, Ph.D., identifies the clinical application of testing for Streptococcus pneumoniae polysaccharide antibodies and describes the tests available for measuring these antibodies.

PACE / State of FLIn this month's "Virtual Lecture," Anand Padmanabhan provides a general overview and science in the field related to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), and monoclonal gammopathy of thrombotic significance (MGTS), and focuses on impacts related to diagnosis for anti-platelet factor 4-mediated thrombotic syndromes.

In this “Hot Topic,” Divyanshu Dubey, M.B.B.S., associate professor of laboratory medicine and pathology and neurology at Mayo Clinic, discusses various clinical and paraclinical features of autoimmune encephalitis, autoimmune seizures, and epilepsy.

In this month’s “Hot Topic,” Julia Lehman, M.D., professor of dermatology and laboratory medicine and pathology, discusses a subepidermal disease mediated by collagen VII autoantibodies.

In this “Hot Topic,” Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic, discusses the role of bone turnover markers in osteoporosis treatment as well as how to best interpret changes in bone turnover markers.

PACE / State of FLThis month’s “Virtual Lecture” discusses the clinical diagnosis and management, summarizes the testing modalities that guide diagnosis and management, and recognizes the utility of genetic testing as it relates to complement testing in diagnosing and managing thrombotic microangiopathy.

In this “Hot Topic,” Joshua Bornhorst, Ph.D., assistant professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic, reviews biomarker component testing for hepatocellular carcinoma, explains the GALAD score, and explores GALAD score testing at Mayo Clinic Laboratories.