California Pacific Medical Center uses FRAY biopsy punches which have a
very sharp blade for punching out 2, 3, and 4mm sizes.  They also have a
hollow handle for pushing out the punch biopsy.  They may have other,
larger sizes.   The company is FRAY Products Corp, Phone (716)636-7802,
800-288-6580
Located at Baird Research Park, 1576 Sweet Home Rd, amherst, NY 14228
Regards, Tom Kuwahara

Philip Oshel wrote:
>
> Excellent!
>
> This sounds like a standard cork borer--the kind used to turn solid rubber
> stoppers into one- or two-hole stoppers. The sets also come with a rod used
> to hold the nested set of different-sized borers together that would work
> for pushing out the tissue.
>
> This could also be made from a piece of tubing and rod bought at a local
> hardware store for a few cents. Drill a proper-sized hole a little ways
> into a pine block placed over the end of the rod to push it through the
> tissue when taking the core.
>
> Phil
>
> >Dr Juan Rosai of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center showed us at the
> >Society for Applied Immunohistochemistry a type of home- made (I believe)
> >trephine like punch approx 5-6mm in inside diameter that they used to
> >create these multi-tissue blocks.  All you need is a cylindrical or tubular
> >piece of metal whose edge can be sharpened, not necessarily razor sharp,
> >and a thinner piece of metal (or wood or whatever) that fits inside this
> >tube to push the core of paraffin embedded tissue out of the trephine. To
> >obtain the core, you twist and press the trephine into the part of the
> >block that you want and it removes a core.  These cores can then be
> >labelled and saved and are embedded together once you have accumulated all
> >of the samples that you wish to include in your multitissue block.  Keep a
> >record and embed them in straight rows and you have a wonderful tool to
> >evaluate new antibodies. They used 40 tissues in their tumor blocks, ten
> >columns, 4 rows.
> >
> >Jeff Silverman Southampton NY
>
> ****be famous! send in a tech tip or question***
> Philip Oshel
> Technical Editor, Microscopy Today
> PO Box 620068
> Middleton, WI  53562
> (608) 833-2885
> oshel@terracom.net

--
*******************************
Thomas J. Kuwahara
Senior Immunohistochemist
Advanced Pathology Systems
3801 Sacramento St. suite 621
San Francisco, CA 94118
415 750 6800 x23067 tel
415 750 2332 fax
tom@adpath.com