[Histonet] Warm up freezer-stored powder, or use right away?

[Bob Richmond]

Tim Morken (Pathology Site Manager, Parnassus - Supervisor, Electron
Microscopy/Neuromuscular Special Studies Department of Pathology - UC San
Francisco Medical Center) asks:

>>We have a debate going on for those freezer-stored powdered chemicals
used for enzyme histochemistry. One side says warm up the container to room
temperature before opening in order to prevent water condensation in the
container/powder. The other side says to use right away and put back in the
freezer to avoid long exposure at room temperature. I'd like to hear pros
and cons of each and any references stating one practice or the other.<<

Opening that freezer-cold bottle before it warms up is ruinous. What I was
taught to do in a research histochemistry lab (yeeks, this is a little less
than 50 years ago) is to weigh out the needed quantity of the chemical
(say, 10 mg of ATP) into empty gelatin capsules, and put the filled
capsules in the freezer. When you do the procedure, take a single capsule
out of the freezer. You could make up big batches of these capsules on a
slow day.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN