Equipment to recognise the end of the trimming phase of a biological tissue included within a block of containment material

An apparatus for processing in an automated way a biological tissue embedded within a block of containment material, including for automatically recognizing an end of a trimming step of said biological tissue embedded within said block of containment material, wherein said apparatus comprises:

• an instrument provided with a cutting element configured to perform cutting operations, including a microtome arranged to section the biological tissue embedded within the block of containment material and make slice portions of said biological tissue, wherein said microtome comprises a support element for locking in place the block to be sectioned, wherein one between said cutting element or said support element is movable with respect to the other according to a cyclic trajectory to form a plurality of said slice portions,
• at least one camera arranged to acquire a plurality of images related to the a state of the block of containment material during the cutting operations,
• at least one sensor arranged to detect the a position of said support element or of said cutting element with respect to the other during of the cyclic trajectory, and to send an activation signal of the at least one camera to acquire an image after cutting of each slice portion, so as to continuously monitor the state of the block of containment material acquiring a plurality of consecutive images, each one after the cutting of one slice portion,
• a cleaning device comprising a nozzle configured to remove in real time waste of containment material generated during the cutting operations, while the plurality of consecutive images are acquired, without interfering with a field of view of the camera,
• an electronic processing and control group configured to automatically control said at least one sensor configured to activate the camera and said cleaning device,
• said electronic processing and control group being configured and programmed to:
• process in real time each acquired image to check if there is a trimming condition, such that the microtome cuts slice portions consisting only of containment material or if there is a sectioning condition of biological tissue, such that the cutting element comes into contact with the biological tissue embedded within the block creating slice portions comprising portions of biological tissue,
• activating a stop signal to automatically stop sectioning operations if the sectioning condition has been identified for at least two consecutive processed images.