Method and apparatus for high-throughput sample handling process line

A thermal cycling system, comprising:

• at least one thermal cycling station, each station including a flow cell assembly for supporting rows of wells of a microtiter plate during a thermal cycling process, the flow cell assembly comprising a plurality of guide walls extending upwardly from a plate, the guide walls spatially arranged to define a plurality of flow channels through which fluid can flow, wherein each flow channel is sized to receive a single row of wells of the microtiter plate when the microtiter plate is positioned atop the flow cell assembly;
• a plurality of fluid reservoirs fluidly coupled to the at least one thermal cycling stations, each fluid reservoir being temperature controlled, wherein fluid from each reservoir can be selectively routed to desired flow cells of the at least one thermal cycling station.

A system that transfers biological sample material to target locations on a substrate, comprising:

• a dispensing head having an array of pins that dispense the materials onto the target locations;
• a substrate alignment camera located in a fixed position relative to the dispensing head, wherein the substrate alignment camera has a substrate field of view that can be used to align the dispensing head relative to the indexing mark on the substrate;
• a pin alignment camera having a pin field of view that can be used to align the pins relative to the dispensing head.

A method of aligning a dispensing head to target locations on a substrate, comprising:

• obtaining a current substrate image that shows the location of an indexing mark on a current substrate relative to a substrate alignment reticle for a current position of the current substrate relative to the dispensing head;
• comparing the current substrate image to a prior substrate image that shows the location of the indexing mark on a prior substrate relative to the substrate alignment reticle;
• changing the position of the dispensing head relative to the current position of the current substrate so that there is no change between the location of the indexing mark on the current substrate image relative to the alignment reticle and the location of the indexing mark on the prior substrate image relative to the alignment reticle.

A method of operating a device that transfers biological samples from a pin array of a dispensing head to corresponding target locations on a substrate, the method comprising:

• locating a pin index position that indicates the position of one or more pins of the pin array relative to the dispensing head;
• locating a substrate index position that indicates the position of the dispensing head relative to the substrate;
• comparing the located pin index position with the located substrate index position and determining alignment of one or more of the pins relative to the substrate.

A device that transfers biological sample material from locations spaced on a solid support to target locations spaced on a substrate, comprising an array of pins that can aspirate and dispense the material, the pins being movably positioned with respect to one another, wherein the pins can be arranged at a first spacing that is an integral multiple of spacing of the locations spaced on the solid support so that a plurality of the pins can be simultaneously dipped into a corresponding plurality of the locations on the solid support, and wherein the pins can also be arranged at a second spacing that matches spacing of the target locations in at least one axis so that a plurality of the pins can simultaneously dispense material to a corresponding plurality of target locations.

A process line system for handling biological samples, the system comprising:

• a control computer that controls the movement of a sample material plate along the process line, wherein the control computer accepts user inputs that define handling of the biological samples;
• a plurality of modules arranged along the process line, each module including at least one work station that performs at least one task associated with the handling of the biological samples;
• wherein the control computer adjusts the movement of the sample material plate along the process line so that the sample material plate is transported to only those modules that are to handle the biological sample, and so that the sample material plate bypasses any module that should not handle the biological sample, as defined by the user inputs, and wherein the process line can process up to five hundred twenty sample material plates per day.