The Compresstome reference library: 315 pages, and only Part I is an index

Precisionary rebuilt the Compresstome reference library. It is 315 pages: a bibliography of published work that used a Precisionary instrument, plus 22 sectioning protocols reproduced in full. The cover is dated August 2026.

I went through the whole file before sending it to anyone. Here is what is in it, which part to search, and what it will not tell you.

Part I is the index

Pages 4 to 62. Every entry is one line: authors, year, title, journal, then a metadata line carrying country, animal, live or fixed, slice thickness in µm, and technique, with a link to the PubMed or PMC record. 622 entries are tagged live and 276 fixed. 734 carry a country, across 30 countries.

The organ sections run brain live, brain fixed, brainstem, spinal cord, eye and retina, ear and cochlea, heart, lung, liver, kidney, intestine and gut, pancreas, lymph node and spleen, muscle and nerve, cartilage, skin, breast and adipose, reproductive, bladder, adrenal, tumor, plants, and materials. Brain live is by far the largest, 22 pages of it.

300 µm is the most common thickness in the file with 203 entries, then 250 µm with 99, 350 µm with 80, and 400 µm with 64.

Parts II and III are not indexes

The introduction says the library is indexed three ways, by organ system, by animal model and by experiment. Part II, animal model, is pages 63 to 95. Part III, experiment, is pages 96 to 129. Both are plain citation lists. No country, no thickness, no technique tag, no PubMed link. They repeat papers already in Part I with less attached to them.

Search Part I and skip the other two. Part I already carries the animal and the technique on every line, which is what Parts II and III were supposed to give you.

The ten Israeli entries

Ten entries list Israel as the corresponding author's country. Eight of the ten are live tissue cut at 250 µm doing tumor work or ex vivo slice culture: colorectal, pancreatic, ovarian, and a clinical study using ex vivo organ culture to predict patient response to therapy. One is precision-cut lung slices in pig and human at 250 to 300 µm. One is fixed mouse tissue at 200 µm from 2008.

Not one of them is electrophysiology.

The global picture is the other way round. Electrophysiology is the most common technique tag in the file with 303 entries, ahead of precision-cut lung slices at 156 and IHC or ISH at 145.

My reading of that - the Compresstome came into Israel through cancer labs doing patient-derived slice culture, and the local electrophysiology labs are mostly still cutting on something else. I could be wrong about why. The counts are in the file and you can check them.

The protocols

Part IV is pages 130 to 315, so most of the document. 22 protocols: live brain, fixed brain, acute brain slice for electrophysiology, spinal cord, eye, heart, lung, precision-cut lung slices, liver, precision-cut liver slices v2, precision-cut gut slices, kidney, spleen, lymph node, muscle, skin, tumor, organoid, plant, frozen tissue, IHC and ISH.

They are numbered steps with a rationale note and a tips note against some of them. The fresh brain protocol names the agarose, Sigma A-0701 low gelling point at 2 percent held around 37 C, and gives the settings Precisionary recommends for that tissue, advance speed 2 and oscillation 4 to 6.

These are Precisionary's own documents, written at different times. Some carry references from 2014 and 2015, and one points at Precisionary's starter kit page in the middle of the procedure. Good starting draft for a tissue you have not cut before. No peer review behind them.

What it will not tell you

It does not compare the Compresstome to anything. There is no Leica or Campden entry, because the file is a list of people who used a Precisionary instrument. If the question is whether the agarose and syringe approach beats a conventional vibratome on your tissue, this file does not answer it.

The verification is also Precisionary's own. They say every paper was checked against its full-text Methods to confirm an instrument was used rather than cited. I cannot audit that and neither can you. It is a reasonable claim from a company with an interest in the answer.

How I would use it

Find your organ section in Part I and read the thickness column first. If nobody in your section is cutting at the thickness you need, that is something to know before you buy.

Take two or three papers from your section and read their Methods properly. The entry line gives thickness and technique. Solution, temperature and blade are in the paper.

Then open the matching Part IV protocol as a starting draft and expect to change it.

The three models NBT supplies

• Compresstome VF 210-0Z
• Compresstome VF-510-0Z
• Compresstome VF-800-0Z, for specimens up to 100 mm across

The library is here, all 315 pages of it.

One thing I would like to know from anyone here running acute slices for patch clamp: are you cutting on a Compresstome or on something else, and what made you pick it? The file says nobody in Israel is. Is that right?