• Question: what is your favourite chemical to work with?

    Asked by to Del, Catherine, John, Mo Rassul on 19 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: John Foster

      John Foster answered on 19 Mar 2014:

      I work with a chemical called Xylene. This is really useful in the lab. We can take bits of biopsies of patient’s tumours and cut them up, we can then hold them in place by covering them with wax. This means the sections of cancer tissue can be store for a long time.

      If you want to get at the tissue to look at the cancer later on you need to remove the wax. A chemical called Xylene is used to dissolve the wax and leave the tissue intact. It is a really dangerous chemical and is really tough on wax, but doesn’t damage the tissue.

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