On Fri, 28 Apr 2000, Eileen Lonergan wrote:

> We are looking for an air-tight lidded container to both liquid nitrogen-OCT
> freeze and -80C store human tissue samples.

  If the frozen specimens are eventually to be examined microscopically,
  they won't be any good if they were frozen inside containers. There are
  many recent Histonet messages about freezing, and it's all in the
  textbooks too. It doesn't matter if you have only the 1960 edition of
  Pearse or some other and lesser text. The physics hasn't changed.

  If the frozen material is going to be homogenized and assayed for
  its total content of various interesting substances it's probably
  OK to use any polyethylene microcentrifuge tube with a snap-on cap.

  Hope this helps.

 John A. Kiernan,
 Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology,
 The University of Western Ontario,
 LONDON,  Canada  N6A 5C1