[Histonet] Fungus Controls (Nathan Sires)

[Nathan Sires]

Cheryl,

If you are having trouble with the yeast floating down the slide and onto your patient tissue, you can always run the control and the patient tissue on separate slides. Running separate controls is always a good idea when searching for microorganisms (GMS, AFB, or PAS-F stains). Also, I have made my own fungus controls before and it is actually really easy! I also didn’t have any trouble with the fungus floating with this method. All I did was get a sterile urine container, place an orange peel (rind) inside the container, put the lid back on, poke a couple small holes in the top of the lid, and place the container in a window sill somewhere in the laboratory. In a couple of days to a week, you will have some nice fungus (mold) growing on the rind. Once you are done, you can take the rind and cut it into smaller pieces and embed them in separate blocks. This will yield you a whole bunch of fungus controls. : )

Nathan Sires, BA, HT(ASCP)
Histology Supervisor
McAllen Medical Center
956-632-4255 Histology
512-658-2897 Cell