Dear All,

*** Delete now if you are not interested in plastic embedding or my 
story****

Thank you for all your advice and information on recovering my 
precious samples.  I am so pleased that  I thought that I would 
share my sucess story with everyone. ]
My samples were in cassettes in a glass jar with approximately 
200mls of GMA infiltrating soln. This is the 1st time that I have 
used this particular product - so what follows can perhaps be 
blamed on ignorance. 
The samples were left under vacuum at RT for about 10 days - by 
which time they had solidified into a single mass.  So, acting on 
advice received I first donned relevant personal protective gear and 
using Percussive technology (hammer) directed a few  judiciuios 
blows to jar. The whole mass was then soaked in alcohol ( I used 
absolute- others recommend 95%). After a few days the mass was 
softened enough to loosen apart the glued together cassettes  and 
rescue individual biosies which I then further cleaned off by digital 
manipulation. 
They are now soaking in the fridge in a 1:1 soln of infiltrating soln 
and ethanol - further to infiltrating for a SHORT time and embedding.

Thank you once again for all your help and advice.

Best regards
Louise Renton
MRC
Bone research Unit
Johannesburg
South Africa