Methods and systems for increasing the capacity of flow cytometer bacteria detection and antibiotic susceptibility testing systems
AssigneeRenascent Diagnostics, LLC
InventorsShawn A. Ramsaroop, Matthew D. Gombrich
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Aspects of the present disclosure include methods and systems for automated analysis of clinical fluid samples, such as urine, blood, or cerebral spinal fluid, where the number of fluid samples in increased or optimized without negatively impacting the accuracy of the analysis of a given fluid sample.
Claims11
A method of sequencing an analysis of multi-well cassettes each containing a plurality of fluid samples, the method comprising:
- automatically pipetting, through a fluid handling system, a first multi-well cassette containing a first plurality of fluid samples;
- performing a pre-incubation analysis of the first plurality of fluid samples of the first multi-well cassette through the fluid handling system, wherein the pre-incubation analysis includes determining a concentration of live bacteria through bacteria enumeration;
- receiving, from the fluid handling system, pre-incubation analysis results for the first multi-well cassette containing the first plurality of fluid samples, wherein the pre-incubation analysis results indicate a number of the first plurality of fluid samples that contain a concentration of live bacteria above a threshold value;
- determining, according to the pre-incubation analysis results, a duration of time for performing a post-incubation analysis of one or more of the first plurality of fluid samples with a flow cytometer;
- determining at least one of a start time for a pre-incubation analysis of a second multi-well cassette with the flow cytometer, or a start time of an incubation period for the second multi-well cassette, according to the determined duration of time for performing the post-incubation analysis.
A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium containing machine-readable instructions configured to cause a processor of a flow cytometer and fluid handling system to perform operations comprising:
- automatically pipetting, through a fluid handling system, a first multi-well cassette containing a first plurality of fluid samples;
- performing a pre-incubation analysis of the first plurality of fluid samples of the first multi-well cassette through the fluid handling system, wherein the pre-incubation analysis includes determining a concentration of live bacteria through bacteria enumeration;
- receiving, from the fluid handling system, pre-incubation analysis results for the first multi-well cassette containing the first plurality of fluid samples, wherein the pre-incubation analysis results indicate a number of the first plurality of fluid samples that contain a concentration of live bacteria above a threshold value;
- determining, according to the pre-incubation analysis results, a duration of time for performing a post-incubation analysis of one or more of the first plurality of fluid samples with a flow cytometer;
- and
- determining at least one of a start time for a pre-incubation analysis of a second multi-well cassette with the flow cytometer, or a start time of an incubation period for the second multi-well cassette, according to the determined duration of time for performing the post-incubation analysis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.