Manufacturers and other vendors submit samples from their batches of dyes to the BSC's independent laboratory in Rochester NY.
The BSC's certification label on a bottle of dye indicates that the contents are from a batch that passed the tests for chemical purity and for efficacy as a biological stain.
The BSC is a non-profit organization, incorporated in the State of New York, for the purpose of ensuring a supply of high quality stains (mostly dyes) for use in biological and medical laboratories.
Its origins date from 1922, when vendors of biological stains in the USA had exhausted their stocks of pre-war dyes imported from Germany.
American dye manufacturers at that time were unable to produce products that were consistently reliable in histological microtechnique and bacteriology (Conn 1980–1981; Penney 2000).
The assays and other tests used in the commission's laboratory are all published, making the required standards known to both vendors and users of biological stains (Penney et al.
In December 2018 the BSC added to its website an online glossary of hundreds of words and short phrases used in the field of biological staining.
[9] The annual meetings of the BSC are usually held on the first or second weekend in June, in cities easily accessible by air from major centers in North America and Europe.
These meetings include scientific sessions with presentations by invited speakers in such disciplines as cancer biology, neuroscience, pathology and plant sciences.
Banbury, UK: Scion (ISBN 9781907904325) Penney DP (2000) A brief history of the Biological Stain Commission: its founders, its mission and the first 75 years.
Penney DP, Powers JM, Willis C, Frank M, Churukian C (2002b) Methods for testing biological stains.