Histocore - user guidelines

Histocore rules and information

Working in Histocore in Biomedicum

• Kindly note that only users trained by the facility staff are allowed to operate the instruments. Lending your card to untrained colleagues is not allowed and will be charged with a fee.
• Please remember to always book the equipment through iLab.
• Using the equipment without booking, or exceeding the booked time, will be charged with a fee.
• Please respect the booking times and book only the time you actually need.
• In case of any issues or incidents please contact the Histocore staff immediately via telephone (+46 (0)70-2308738 or +46 (0)70-7786635) or via email to histocore-biomedicum@ki.se. In case of an incident resulting in injury, depending on the severity, please head directly to the emergency room. Make sure to follow KI guidelines in case something has happened and for reporting an incident.

Project requests

Work flow:

1. Send your request through iLab
2. We will answer in iLab and include the price offer in our answer.
3. Project responsible or PI approves the cost.
4. Hand in your samples to the histocore.
5. We keep you in the loop throughout the process
6. Information about the results and pick up of samples

We are very happy to assist you in advancing your research! Within Histocore, we experience both calm and busy periods. To enhance efficiency, we have established a streamlined work pipeline that processes requests as they are received, partially in parallel, to optimize time and accelerate progress.

In the event that your project requires prioritization due to its urgency, we offer a special request for speed option. Please note that an additional fee of 1,000 SEK per project will be applied in addition to the standard processing cost for your samples.

Project requests involving protocol development will be handled stepwise, and billed on an hourly basis. Discussions and agreement on proceeding will precede each subsequent step in the process:

1. Literature review, followed by assessment of protocol feasibility and discussion 
2. Protocol development 
3. Processing material/data analysis according to protocol + result delivery

Please be aware that we cannot always guarantee a successful outcome for experiments that require troubleshooting. Our charges are based on the working time invested in the project and not contingent on the final outcome.

Tissue dehydration is performed every Wednesday (or when enough samples are submitted). We offer long, medium and short programs – please contact us in case you are uncertain which one to use for your tissue. Please request the dehydration service in iLab and leave your samples at Histocore before Wednesday 14.30. Please call telephone number +46 (0)70-7786635 or +46 (0)70-2308738 if you do not have access to Histocore. We will meet you there. 

We offer additional dehydration services at a different rate. If you wish to schedule dehydration on a different day other than Wednesday or run a program different from our standard long program, an additional charge of 1000 SEK will apply, in addition to the regular cost of running your samples.

If you work with bone tissues, we can help you ensure that the tissues are properly handled / decalcified. Please then contact us prior to cryocutting yourself, or before transfer to 70% alcohol if you wish to request service for cryocutting or cutting of paraffin-embedded bone samples. 

How to acknowledge Histocore

To support the Histological Core Facility in Biomediucm in future evaluations and applications, all users are requested to acknowledge experimentation or services performed at Histocore in manuscripts submitted for publication. When there is a substantial intellectual and/or experimental contribution to a publication, we would appreciate it if the staff member were also mentioned in the acknowledgement section.