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US 12,283,471 B2Granted
Mass cytometry
AssigneeFluidigm Canada Inc.
InventorsPaul Corkum, Alexander Loboda, David M. Rayner
Life of this patent
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AssigneeFluidigm Canada Inc.
InventorsPaul Corkum, Alexander Loboda, David M. Rayner
Estimating the term…
Embodiments of the present invention relate to replacement of the previous ICP-based ionisation system with a new laser ionisation system, providing improved mass spectrometer-based apparatus and methods for using them to analyse samples, in particular the use of mass spectrometry mass cytometry, imaging mass spectrometry and imaging mass cytometry, for the analysis of biological samples. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention provide an apparatus, for example a mass cytometer, comprising: 1) a sampler; 2) a laser ionisation system to receive material removed from the sample by the sampler, wherein the laser ionisation system comprises an ionisation system conduit and a pulsed laser adapted to ionise sample material passing through or exiting the ionisation system conduit; and 3) a mass spectrometer to receive elemental ions from said ionisation system and to analyse said elemental ions.
An apparatus comprising:
A method of performing mass cytometry comprising obtaining sample material from a sampler, reshaping a plume of the obtained sample material utilizing a conduit comprising a tapered portion configured to lengthen the plume, ionising the lengthened plume of sample material obtained from the sampler with a laser to create sample elemental ions, and detecting said sample elemental ions by mass spectrometry.
A method of analysing a sample, comprising obtaining multiple portions of sample material from a sampler, reshaping plumes of the multiple portions of sample material utilizing a conduit comprising a tapered portion configured to lengthen the plumes, separately ionising the lengthened plumes of sample material obtained from the sampler with a laser to create sample elemental ions, and detecting said sample elemental ions by mass spectrometry, wherein each portion of material is ionised by multiple laser pulses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.