X-Message-Number: 5203 Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 09:54:11 -0800 (PST) From: Joseph Strout <> Subject: Re: damage assessment & ice microscopy Richard Schroeppel wrote: > We should be investigating ways to examine frozen tissue, > without thawing it first. The only technique I know of is > freeze fracture; I've no clue as to its applicability. Actually, cryomicroscopy is a rather common technique. Tissue can be flash-frozen (with liquid propane, for example), resulting in mostly vitrified water, sliced (with diamond or glass knives) on a cryo- ultramicrotome, and examined by transmission electron microscopy. Freeze-substitution (which you also hinted at in your post) is also a fairly common technique, though not one I have any experience with. > Development of methods for examining frozen tissue would probably > have other scientific uses besides cryonics. It does, and it's in widespread use. In fact, I have always assumed that when we're talking about examining tissue to evaluate a freezing protocol, we're examining it still in the frozen state. Is this not true? [For an intro to EM, including frozen preparations, check out "Electron microscopy in biology: a practical approach" by Robin Harris (1991).] ,------------------------------------------------------------------. | Joseph J. Strout Department of Neuroscience, UCSD | | http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/ | `------------------------------------------------------------------' Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5203