Sweet Tips Video Narration:

Welcome to the Arraymold Sweet Tips video. We did this video to help make Tissue Microarray construction even easier.

The first technique we will cover is called, The Scraping Technique. This is an excellent technique for very shallow tissue blocks. Instead of doing multiple punches to fill your needle we recommend scraping the tissue out of the block to filling the needle. This will make more since in a moment.

Once the tissue is in your needle you will have to pack the loose samples to make them into a solid core. Place the needle end down on a table and push the stylet down several times packing the tissue into a tight core. Now the tissue is ready to insert into your Arraymold block.

This picture shows an example of the scraping technique and punch fill technique. The scraping is a solid tissue core while the punch filled core has scan tissue and paraffin through out.

The next technique we are covering is called the, Push UP Technique. This is very helpful when a core has fallen inside your Arraymold block.

Using a sowing Straight Pin, place the pin on the backside of the Arraymold paraffin block. Align the straight pin so it is behind the dropped core. Slowly push the straight pin through the back of the cassette and gently push the core up to the top of your Arraymold.

We hope these Sweet Tips help. We recommend testing these techniques before you use them on your precious Array blocks. If you know of other techniques we can pass on to Array Technicians please let us know… And thanks for choosing, The Arraymold.