As we all happily strolled into Gen Lab 1 on Tuesday morning, the stench of dead animal hit us like a bus. Laid out on the bench was the gut of a pig all ready for “slicing and dicing”. After the art of breathing through our mouths (and not through our noses) was mastered we got started.

The technicians began by cutting a kidney and a heart into suitable sized segments for fixation. The tissue was then placed into plastic histology cassettes and dipped it into 10% neutral buffered formaldehyde to remove any blood that may still be there. They were then placed into seperate buckets that would be sent to the hospital (for further processing into wax blocks ready for us to thinly cut with a microtome).

Our job was to remove the liver from the rest of the pig gut that we had been provided with and by golly was it a big liver.  As we seperated the liver it became clear that it was approximately 2 to 3 times bigger than the average human liver and had rather leathery look to it. the liver was then cut up into similar segments to the heart and kidney and also placed in a seperate bucket for the hospital.

We then explored the rest of the gut. Scalples in hand we began the butchering. First point of call, the tongue. The tough muscle was quite large and of a more rough texture than the rest. a we worked our way down toward the heart we sliced through the oesophagus to have a look at what the inside looked like. There seemed to be so sort of unknown whit foam inside. As we got to the heart we cut it in two so that we could see both the atria and ventricles as well as getting a clear view of all of the vavles. The lungs were the next stop and these were especially interesting due to their spongy like texture and the fact that as we cut through the middle we could see many of the bronchioles within the tissue.

At the end we took a beaker of water and dropped both a segment of the tongue and of the lung into it. The lung remained afloat at the top of the water whilst the tongue sink to the bottom this was evidence that the lung tissue still had some air remaining in it even after it had been removed from the pig.

After struggling at first to keep our lunch down, we returned back to the labs in the afternoon. We spent the afternoon hunting down and cleaning the remainder of the microscopes within the science building. We also produced some standard solutions of 5 grams/litre and 10 grams/litre of Albumin and 5 grams/litre and 10 grams/litre Globulin for use the following morning on ‘The Stig’ (also known as the Horiba Pentra 400 autoanalyser)…

Our second week of training week begins with a 10 o’clock start. Yes a 10 o’clock start (hurray), where microscopes were the main topic of conversation. The task for today was to do a thorough check and clean of all the microscopes in the science building.

With Dr. Bates help, we created a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the cleaning of microscopes. This involved writing down a set of rules and procedures for the cleaning of the different parts of the microscope. With additional guidance from the manufacturer’s websites and theirs SOPs, for all the different makes of microscopes we compiled a general SOP that could be used for all. Some of the main points of the SOP included the concentration of the solvents we would use for cleaning and the type of materials that would be used. These had to be carefully chosen so they did not damage the lenses or the mechanical stages on which microscopes slides are placed during viewing.

With a total of 50 microscopes to check, we best get a’cracking. The first part of the procedure was to have a quick look over to check for any damage to the microscope and to ensure the bulb was working. After this we then commenced with the cleaning. To do this we removed the eyepieces and the objective lenses. Following the guidelines of the SOP, we used 70% ethanol on a cotton swab to clean the objectives, being careful to clean in a circular motion from the centre of the lenses. The eyepieces were cleaned with lint-free tissues. To clean the mechanical stage, a solution of warm water and liquid detergent was used.

This was a very time-consuming task as you may have already guessed and with a relatively long lunch break it took us all the entire day. However, now all know how to strip and clean a microscope, which are useful skills to have when applying for a post-graduate job.