Spotting pin, spotting device and method for spotting biomolecules
AssigneeHitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd.
InventorsNaoki Yokokawa, Mitsuhiro Tachibana, Hiroshi Kishida
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention enables the accurate management of the total number of spotting counts for each spotting pin. An IC chip is installed on the spotting pin to allow the IC chip to accumulate spotting-count information, and during each spotting time the information is loaded up and displayed.
Claims8
A spotting pin for spotting a biomolecule on a substrate, comprising an information recording medium, wherein the information recording medium stores information regarding the total number of spotting counts.
A spotting device comprising:
- a pin head having a spotting pin installed thereon, the spotting pin comprising an information recording medium that stores the total number of spotting counts;
- a pin head driving means for moving the pin head up and down;
- an information reading/writing means for reading and writing information on the information recording medium;
- a display section;
- and
- a control section for controlling the pin head driving means, information reading/writing means and display section,
- wherein the control section causes the display section to display the total number of spotting counts that the information reading/writing means reads out from the information recording medium provided on the spotting pin.
A method for spotting a biomolecule comprising the steps of:
- installing, on a pin head, a spotting pin comprising an information recording medium that stores the total number of spotting counts;
- reading the total number of spotting counts of the spotting pin from the information recording medium;
- displaying on a display means the loaded-up total number of spotting counts;
- spotting the biomolecule on the substrate using the spotting pin installed on the pin head;
- updating the total number of spotting counts displayed on the display means;
- and
- updating the total number of spotting counts stored in the information recording medium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.