In this episode of Inside the Lab, host David Ritter kicks off a new series on corporate responsibility with a timely conversation about Green Labs. Joined by Dr. Ilyssa Gordon and Dr. Moira Larsen, the discussion revisits how far laboratory sustainability has come since Dr. Gordon’s 2021 appearance on the show and examines what has changed over the last four years.

The episode explores what “green labs” really mean in the context of clinical and pathology laboratories, from life-cycle assessments that quantify the carbon footprint of common workflows to system-level strategies that integrate sustainability into corporate responsibility frameworks. Dr. Gordon shares insights from her research on the environmental impact of GI biopsy processing and discusses how data-driven approaches can influence decision-making at the bench. Dr. Larsen outlines how green initiatives must be built into lab’s missions and financials in order to truly take hold, as well as the importance of partnering with aligned partners when sourcing materials.

Throughout the conversation, the guests emphasize practical, achievable actions—both at the institutional and individual levels—while addressing the realities facing today’s lab professionals. The episode concludes on an optimistic note, highlighting what’s currently inspiring leaders in laboratory sustainability and reinforcing the idea that meaningful progress is possible, even in resource-constrained environments.

The current landscape of testing for NSCLC is complex, with many new biomarkers emerging rapidly, more points during which testing is possible, and precision drug treatments available on the basis of findings from biomarker testing. While promising for patients, the result of this rapidly changing landscape is confusion from interdisciplinary care teams as to what testing is necessary and when, who in multidisciplinary care teams should be ordering new tests and when, and what workflows are necessary for labs. Host David Ritter, MA is joined by Dr. Ying-Chun Lo and Dr. Mamatha Chivuluka to discuss what things pathologists and lab professionals need to know about emerging biomarkers for NSCLC.

In this conversation, the panel reflects on how NSCLC biomarker testing has evolved over the past decade, highlighting the shift from limited, sequential testing to guideline-recommended broad molecular profiling. Drs. Lo and Chivuluka explore the clinical relevance of emerging biomarkers such as HER2, TROP2, and HER3, and discuss how new targeted therapies are influencing testing strategies in real-world practice. They also examine practical considerations for laboratories, including platform selection across IHC, PCR, and NGS, approaches to tissue stewardship in small lung biopsies, and the growing leadership role of pathologists in multidisciplinary teams to ensure timely, guideline-concordant, and equitable access to biomarker testing for patients with NSCLC.

Host David Ritter, MA is joined by Lotte Mulder, PhD and Kamran Mirza, MD, PhD, FASCP to discuss their new book, Mia the Marvelous Lab Explorer. The adventure follows Mia, a superhero and scientist, who uses laboratory science to explain why a friend has fallen ill with leukemia. The book targets children ages 5 to 9 years and balances striking entertaining and engaging tone with explaining scientific concepts accurately to a younger audience. Their conversation of the book expands into strategies for fostering engagement in laboratory science across age groups, how children’s literature can highlight the role of the lab to parents as well as younger readers, and how the format of a children's book fits into the undeclared student to laboratory professional pipeline ASCP is working to create.

Additionally, there is currently a fundraiser underway to donate 1,000 copies of the book to pediatricians' offices, libraries, and schools under the hashtag #MissionMarvelous. If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser, you can do so here: miathemarvelous.com. The fundraiser runs through February 16, 2026.

Interim CEO of ASCP and host Dr. Ali Brown sits down with Dr. Eric Konnick and Michelle Campbell, MLS(ASCP) to discuss lessons learned from the latest efforts to place laboratory developed tests under FDA oversight. For listeners unfamiliar with LDTs, they begin by establishing what LDTs are and what their value to the lab and patient safety are before debunking common misunderstandings cited by patient advocacy groups regarding their accuracy, validity, and the transparency with which they’re developed. They go on to define what FDA oversight would mean for laboratories in terms of cost, time, and labor, contextualizing these added costs in ongoing workforce shortages in the lab.

They close their conversation by spotlighting which efforts ASCP and similar organizations made to advocate for the lab were most successful, and describe alternative strategies for updating laboratory regulations, such as modernizing CLIA.

Host Constantine “Aki” Kanakis, MD is joined by Brittany Teeter and Sean to provide lessons learned and real-world takeaways from the world of laboratory management. This episode offers a glimpse into what seasoned lab managers learned across the course of their careers and provides concrete takeaways for lab managers at any stage of their careers on preparing for inspections, creating staff buy in for workflow updates, and relating the success of the lab to a hospital’s financial outcome when interfacing with C-suite executives. Their conversation offers fresh perspective on how to approach meeting regulatory standards as opportunities for improvement rather than mere hurdles to clear.

In this episode, their discussion covers disaster preparedness, addressing both how labs can prepare proactively for the foreseeable and how to reactively respond to the unforeseeable. They provide tips on everything from preparing for novel infectious outbreaks to stocking enough extension cords and flashlights in the event of power outages. They include valuable anecdotes about times thing went wrong in their lab, and what they did to react in a state of crisis.

In this episode of Inside the Lab, host Constantine Kanakis is joined by former ASCP president and Director of Transfusion Medicine at VCU Dr. Kimberly Sanford to discuss topics in transfusion medicine. This one-on-one conversation between two transfusion experts covers a wide variety of contemporary issues in transfusion medicine, including best practices in apheresis, logistical issues associated with pre-hospital transfusion services, and strategies for addressing blood shortages. Their conversation also touches on how to compassionately discuss problems with so-called “vaccine-negative blood” with patients in the context of recent legislation regarding this, and how transfusion experts can best ration limited blood supplies during periods of scarcity.

In this episode of Inside the Lab, ASCP CMO and CEO Dr. Ali Brown is joined by Drs. Nicole Jackson and Greg Davis to discuss current topics in forensic pathology. In their fascinating and wide ranging discussion, they highlight the often overlooked role of forensic pathologists in offering empathy, care, and advice to the grieving relatives of their deceased patients, the need for expanded autopsy requirements in medical school rotations, and the utility of forensic training to anyone who needs to understand anatomy.

Listeners will come away from this episode with an appreciation of the emotional intelligence required to work as a forensic pathologist, as well as the deeply rewarding interpersonal interactions that forensic pathologists can have through autopsy pathology. They will also appreciate the difficulties that workforce shortages pose for the practice of medicine generally. Listeners will also become aware of strategies for attracting the next generation of forensic pathologists in a field critical to medical practice.

Host Kelly Swails interviews Dr. Brad Brimhall and genetic counselor Megan Maxwell from the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio to discuss challenges with and strategies for the diagnosis of rare diseases. Their discussion covers topics like the advantages of proactively using genetic testing to identify gene markers at the outset of care, the possibilities of artificial intelligence in identifying markers of rare diseases, and the role of pathologists in a multi-disciplinary care team - as well as the need for adequate communication and a holistic approach within that care team. Collectively, our guests describe how these insights can be used to shorten a patient's "diagnostic odyssey."