We have the Lab Vision 360 from Thermo Fisher and we have really bad problems with the slides drying out. We put wet paper towels and water boats in, but after 20 or 30 minutes, the slides have very little liquid on them. I have gone back a lot to manual staining except for stains that work at 30 minutes. By the way, we are in Ca. Has anyone else that has this instrument have the same problem? Nancy
From: Jan Shivers <shive...@umn.edu> To: histonet <histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 11:56 AM Subject: Fwd: [Histonet] Humidity levels and IHC staining I've had 3 Dakos and have had the drying phenomenon in all of them to some extent. We put wet paper towels in the stain sink, as others have mentioned. Plus, we found that most of the problem came from having an air gap between the hood and the unit, which wasn't closed entirely by the gasket. (The circulating room air got through the gap and dried out the slides in that front row area.) We use a long piece of styrofoam padding, cut it to length, and insert that between the bottom of the closed hood and the metal base at the beginning of each staining run, and it blocks all unwanted airflow into the slide chamber. Jan Shivers UMN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Cynthia Pyse <cp...@x-celllab.com> Date: Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:39 PM Subject: RE: [Histonet] Humidity levels and IHC staining To: "Morken, Timothy" <timothy.mor...@ucsfmedctr.org>, Rene J Buesa < rjbu...@yahoo.com>, histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu, Jason McGough < jmcgo...@clinlab.com> NY in winter has low humidity, I still have no problems with my Dako stainer. Make sure the lid is closed. I had a tech who consistently left the lid open, there was some drying on the first row of slides. Closed the lid the problem stopped. Are you using Dako buffer? The surfactant in the buffer should prevent drying. You might want to run it by the Dako tech service. Cindy Cindy Pyse, CLT, HT (ASCP) Laboratory Manager X-Cell Laboratories e-mail cp...@x-celllab.com -----Original Message----- From: histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu [mailto:histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Morken, Timothy Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:27 PM To: 'Rene J Buesa'; histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu; Jason McGough Subject: RE: [Histonet] Humidity levels and IHC staining Renee, it can depend on where you are: Florida? 70, 80% humidity, no drying out. South Dakota, in winter? 10 percent humidity and you get drying problems. Tim Morken Supervisor, Histology, IPOX UCSF Medical Center San Francisco, CA, USA -----Original Message----- From: histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu [mailto:histonet-boun...@lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Rene J Buesa Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 11:20 AM To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu; Jason McGough Subject: Re: [Histonet] Humidity levels and IHC staining A good auto stainer (like DAKO) with adequate amounts of dispensed reagents during the correct periods of time should not experiment any drying out on the slides. Adequate humidity is required to be controlled during manual IHC, especially if done over a heated support. If because of any reason (including not leveled slides) you experiment drying out, the best way would be to have an open flat dish containing water but, again, that was never a problem for me using the DAKO auto stainer. Which auto stainer are you using? René J. --- On Fri, 2/17/12, Jason McGough <jmcgo...@clinlab.com> wrote: From: Jason McGough <jmcgo...@clinlab.com> Subject: [Histonet] Humidity levels and IHC staining To: histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu Date: Friday, February 17, 2012, 2:09 PM We are wondering what other labs are doing to control the humidity while IHC stains are being performed. We currently place wet towels and a small weigh boat with water in our Autostainer to help prevent our slides from drying out but that seems to not be enough, they still tend to dry out and produce background staining. What should the humidity level be at? Any help would be appreciated. Jason McGough HT(ASCP) Account Representative - Anatomic Pathology Clinical Laboratory of the Black Hills 2805 5th Street Suite 210 Rapid City, SD 57701 605-343-2267 Ext 127 605-718-3779 (Fax) jmcgo...@clinlab.com _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet