Apparatus for high throughput chemical reactions
AssigneeWaferGen, Inc.
InventorsVictor Joseph, Amjad Huda, Alnoor Shivji
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Apparatus, systems, chips, and methods of performing a large number of simultaneous chemical reactions are provided herein. The chips of the invention comprise addressable units that can be addressed according to the temperature of the reaction to be run. The subject apparatus, systems, and chips are particularly suited for performing polymerase chain reactions on thousands of nucleic acid sequences, up to and including sequences of an entire genome of an organism of interest.
Claims57
An apparatus comprising at least one heating element, configured to be in thermal contact with a chip said chip comprising a substrate and an array of nanowells, wherein the at least one heating element is configured to move relative to the chip.
A method of conducting a chemical reaction comprising:
- providing a chip configured to receive a reaction sample;
- providing at least one heating element positionable in relation to the chip to provide thermal contact between the at least one heating element and the chip;
- and
- conducting the chemical reaction in the reaction sample by varying the temperature of the chip, wherein said varying the temperature is effected by moving the at least one heating element in relation to the chip such that the heating element is in thermal contact with the chip.
A chip for running a reaction comprising an array of addressable units, each unit being configured for running a chemical reaction, wherein the array of the addressable units is configured to correspond to a predetermined temperature zone, and wherein an individual unit in said array is dimensioned to hold a chemical reaction mixture of less than about 1 μl.
An apparatus for conducting a chemical reaction requiring cycling at least two temperature levels, comprising:
- (a) chip for running a reaction comprising an array of addressable units, each unit being configured for a chemical reaction, wherein the array of the addressable units is configured to correspond to a predetermined temperature zone, and wherein an individual unit in said array is dimensioned to hold a chemical reaction mixture of less than about 1 μl;
- and
- (b) a heating element in thermal contact with the chip.
A method of conducting a reaction that involves a plurality of reaction samples and requires cycling at least two temperature levels, comprising:
- (a) providing a chip for running a reaction comprising an array of addressable units, each unit being configured for a chemical reaction, wherein the array of the addressable units is configured to correspond to a predetermined temperature zone, and wherein an individual unit in said array is dimensioned to hold a chemical reaction mixture of less than about 1 μl;
- (b) placing the plurality of reaction samples into the units of the chip according to the set of predetermined temperatures;
- and
- (c) controlling a heating element to effect cycling at least two temperature levels.
An apparatus for conducting a chemical reaction involving cycling at least two temperature levels, comprising:
- (a) a body configured to receive a chip comprising a plurality of nanowells, for containing the chemical reaction;
- and
- (b) a first heater providing a first temperature and a second heater providing a second temperature;
- wherein the first heater and the second heater are configured to be movable between a first and a second orientation, and wherein the first orientation places the heater in thermal contact with the sample holder and the second orientation does not place the heater in thermal contact with the sample holder.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.