In order to start running your own laboratory, it is necessary to have all the right equipment. To get the reliable results a laboratory has basic equipment that guarantees its functioning. There are two important elements to bear in mind: the equipment and how to handle it. Scientific and laboratory machines are complicated and required training to ensure that the task is carried out exactly as the experiment or study requires. There are some parameters to bear in mind when equipping a pathological laboratory.
Basic Equipment
Microtome
Microtomy is a method for the preparation of thin sections for materials such as bones, minerals and teeth, and an alternative to electropolishing and ion milling. Microtome is a tool to cut extremely thin sections. They use steel (use for organic tissues), glass (for electron microscopy) or diamond (for hard materials like bones or teeth).
Automatic Slide Stainer
The staining process is a routine technique that reveals the exceptional detail of tissue structure and makeup of the cells. It is a common auxiliary technique in the microscopy field. The Automatic slide stainer allows the operator to highlight the structures in biological tissues and obtain a more detailed look at the sample.
Biomedical Specimen Cabinet
Storing lab items and tools is a very important inside any laboratory. No matter the size of a laboratory is, the right storing system is vital in order to achieve the desired results. A specimen cabinet allows an appropriate storage system that guarantees that lab’s supply is organized.
The Cooling Plate
The cooling process is an essential step in every histology lab because it makes good quality paraffin blocks cutting. It is almost impossible to make good cuts without doing the cooling process. By using the cooling plates to cool off the paraffin blocks, it creates a drastic improvement and it makes the cutting a lot easier. These facts speed up the process and helps to save time for the lab operators.
Paraffin Trimmer / Dispenser
Paraffin is a very important consumable in any histology laboratory. This item has become in the essential lab supply when it comes to microtomy and sample sectioning. The reason is that paraffin wax is used to impregnate tissue prior to sectioning thin samples of tissue.
The Slide Dryer
In histology labs, a very common procedure is the tissue sampling, processing and staining. The slide dryer comes in handy in the preparation of microscope slides at the specimen mounting stage. The mounting stage happens in order to preserve and support a stained section for light microscopy. The sample is mounted on a clear glass slide and it is covered with a thin glass coverslip. To accomplish the coverslip and slide’s adherence it is essential to use a mounting medium. This slide dryer is a helpful device because it dries the slides for at least 1 hour. After that, they may be stored at room temperature.
Tissue Embedding System
The paraffin embedding procedure is a very common one in any histology lab. This is the standard method to produce blocks of tissue for section cutting. Usually, this procedure is performed using an embedding centre, surrounding the tissues by a medium such as paraffin wax, which when cooled and solidified will provide sufficient support for section cutting.
Tissue Floating system
At the time that any sample arrives in the lab in order to be tested, these tissues or fluids are located into formalin to avoid any deterioration. In this step a medical scientist, an anatomical pathologist or the expert inside your lab examines them. The tissue floating system makes the tissue preparation easier, safer and more efficient. For this process, it is important the microtomy (cutting sections & label slides with no errors) and histology (eliminating errors, improving workflow and the patient’s safety). A good tissue floating system should combine water bath and slide dryer.
Tissue Processor
A tissue processor is an instrument that is used to analyze and process samples by fixing, staining, dehydrating or decalcifying them. These devices have slowly evolved to be safer in use, handle larger specimen numbers, process more quickly and to produce better quality outcomes. Most modern fluid-transfer processors employ raised temperatures, effective fluid circulation and incorporate vacuum/pressure cycles to enhance processing and reduce processing times.
Tissue Water Bath
Water baths are a very common item in any kind of microbiological laboratories. This type of equipment is a container that is capable to hold heated water in order to incubate samples in water in a constant temperature for a long period. Water baths usually have an interface that allows the user to set the right temperature in order to achieve the wanted results. In the pathological anatomy laboratory, the sectioning process is one of the most important ones because this procedure has to be very precise and the blocks cut must not be cracked in any way. After cool off the paraffin block to make the right cut, blocks are placed in the water bath and set it to the desired temperature, being a fundamental step in the entire procedure. Visit our catalog HERE