The quest for formaldehyde substitutes is motivated by two fundamental developments: the OSHA regulation standard declaring it hazardous and advocating its substitution with less dangerous chemicals and the fact that formalin is a poor preserver of nucleic acids. Among the non-alcoholic formalin substitute, glyoxal has been hailed as the best alternative. In this work, we showed that glyoxal-containing fixatives are not plausible polyvalent substitution options.