Mike Millar
Mike has a certificate in Management, Business Administration & Management from The University of Northampton and is currently Histology & Imaging Research Facility Manager, University of Edinburgh and Chief Technical Officer, Aquila BioMedical.
Articles by Mike Millar
How you fix your tissue or cells can affect your results, for better or for worse. Discover the key points to think about before undertaking your histology fixation.
The issue of mouse-on-mouse background is only a cause for concern for the histotechnologist working within a research environment. Those working in a diagnostic setting will probably never experience this as they will be working with human tissue with antibodies raised in a variety of species- but one species that won’t be used is human!…
Fluorescent tyramides offer exquisite sensitivity, are easy to use, and are versatile. Find out how to use them to brighten up your research.
You’ll give me an (enzymatic) complex! Following on from Part 1 of this article, let’s start by having a look at the two most popular enzymatic ‘sandwich’ methods; The Peroxidase anti Peroxidase method (PAP). The PAP method was the first sandwich method that I used and involves three main stages- application of primary antibody, secondary…
In my previous article I covered different immunohistochemical staining techniques at a superficial level. In the following articles I will start to explain these technologies in a bit more detail and in which situations they should be applied. All of the following will involve additional stages when applying them, for example- serum blocking, protein blocking,…
The last two decades have seen a dramatic increase in the number of publications using immunohistochemistry (IHC) as a research tool to identify the spatial location of proteins of interest within cells, tissue sections and whole-mount preparations. Grinding and binding The advantages over ‘grind and bind’ methods are apparent, but the very best results will…
In the same way that you should ‘Think Before You Fix’, the choice of embedding media should be dictated by your required end-point. The basic principle is that by processing tissue into an embedding medium you harden the tissue and provide support protecting it from the mechanical forces associated with sectioning. Parma ham and steak…