Manipulation of beads in droplets and methods for manipulating droplets
AssigneeAdvanced Liquid Logic, Inc.
InventorsVamsee K. Pamula, Ramakrishna Sista, Vijay Srinivasan, Michael G. Pollack, Allen E. Eckhardt
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Abstract
Provided herein are methods of splitting droplets containing magnetically responsive beads in a droplet actuator. A droplet actuator having a plurality of droplet operations electrodes configured to transport the droplet, and a magnetic field present at the droplet operations electrodes, is provided. The magnetically responsive beads in the droplet are immobilized using the magnetic field and the plurality of droplet operations electrodes are used to split the droplet into first and second droplets while the magnetically responsive beads remain substantially immobilized.
Claims9
A method comprising:
- substantially immobilizing magnetically responsive beads within a droplet using a magnetic field;
- and
- using a plurality of droplet operations electrodes to split the droplet into first and second droplets, wherein the first droplet contains at least substantially all of the magnetically responsive beads and the second droplet is at least substantially lacking in magnetically responsive beads, further comprising using a physical barrier to facilitate splitting of the droplet, where the physical barrier reduces a gap distance at a point of splitting.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.