We will no longer accept soft tissue for processing after June 1, 2008.

We will continue to receive, process, and analyze soft tissue samples until June 1, 2008. We hope this will enable you to go ahead with any sampling that you had planned for the 07-08 season.

We are experiencing a steadily increasing demand for our cementum aging and tetracycline screening services and feel that we must focus our energies in those directions in order to best serve our clients.

Matson's appreciates your business and we hope that the discontinued service will not be too much of an inconvenience. Thanks for working with us!

Collecting and Storing Specimens

1. Have all containers, tools, labeling instruments, and storage systems well organized in advance.
   
2. Keep soft tissue specimens free of hair. Carefully dissect away non-target tissue, preserving only the specimen to be analyzed.
   
3. Preserve soft tissues in 10% formalin or formalin substitute. After a minimum of 1 week in preservative, and just before shipping, use several changes of tap water to wash the tissue. Place washed tissue in a small Whirl-Pak bag with a minimum of water, just enough to keep the specimen wet. Exclude all air, so the specimen doesn't get in an air pocket and dry during transit. Don't label the outside of plastic bags. Instead, use a soft lead pencil to mark a paper label and enclose it with the specimen. Watercolor paper is good stock for labels. Keep the small envelopes in serial order and place several of them in a larger plastic bag to ensure there is no leakage into the carton.
   
4. Organize the sample by species. Primarily because of size differences, different processing methods are used for soft tissues of different species. Keep specimens from each species separate, in identification, storage, and packaging systems.
   
5. Always double-check all specimen identifications, both on the container and on inventory listings, to make sure no number is incorrectly written, or omitted. Include a master inventory list with the specimen identifications, and accompany it with a diskette giving the same information in an Excel file.
   
6. Pad the plastic bags with plenty of absorbent material and use the sturdiest cardboard for a shipping carton to ensure there will be absolutely no leakage during transit. Postal service workers are understandably alarmed by leaking containers.

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