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US 2009/0155765 A1Published application
Thermal cycler for automatic performance of the polymerase chain reaction with close temperature control
AssigneeApplied Biosystems, LLC
InventorsJohn Girdner Atwood, Albert Carmelo Mossa, Lisa May Goven, Fenton Williams, Timothy M. Woudenberg, Marcel Margulies, Robert P. Rahusa, Richard Leath, Clive Miles
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A thermal cycler for automatic performance of the polymerase chain reaction is provided. The thermal cycler comprises a heater control that provides close temperature control of the reaction.
Claims36
An apparatus comprising:
- a heating and cooling system,
- a heat exchanger in heat transfer communication with the heating and cooling system and adapted to hold at least one sample tube in heat transfer communication with the heat exchanger, wherein the at least one sample tube is adapted to contain a known volume of a sample;
- a temperature sensor adapted to determine the temperature of the heat exchanger in a first sample interval, wherein the first sample interval is an interval of time designated as time n;
- and
- a computing apparatus adapted to control the heating and cooling system and wherein the computing apparatus is adapted to determine the temperature of a sample as a function of the temperature of the heat exchanger over time by utilizing the relationship:
- Tsampn=Tsampn-1+(TBn−Tsampn-1)*tinterval/tau
- where Tsampn is equal to the sample temperature in the first sample interval, Tsampn-1 is a sample temperature in a second sample interval immediately preceding the first sample interval, the second sample interval designated as time n−1, TBn is equal to the temperature of the heat exchanger in the first sample interval, tinterval is a time in seconds between consecutive sample intervals, and tau is a function of thermal characteristics of the apparatus.
4 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- a heating and cooling system;
- a heat exchanger thermally coupled with the heating and cooling system and adapted to hold at least one sample tube, the at least one sample tube being thermally coupled with the heat exchanger and being adapted to contain a known volume of a sample;
- a temperature sensor adapted to determine the temperature of the heat exchanger in a first period of time;
- and
- a computing apparatus adapted to control the heating and cooling system and determine the temperature of a sample in the first period of time and in a second earlier period of time that precedes the first period of time by a third period of time, with the temperature of the sample in the first period of time determined as a function of the difference between the temperature of the heat exchanger in the first period of time and the temperature of the sample in the second earlier period of time.
2 more elements
A method for thermal cycling, comprising:
- providing at least one sample tube in a thermal cycler, the at least one sample tube containing a volume of sample;
- entering sample tube type information into a control computer;
- identifying control information by looking up control information corresponding to the sample tube type information entered;
- and
- controlling the thermal cycler with the control computer, based on the sample tube type information entered, to thermally cycle the sample.
2 more elements
A method for thermal cycling, comprising:
- providing at least one sample tube in a thermal cycler, the at least one sample tube containing a volume of sample;
- entering sample volume information into a control computer;
- identifying control information by looking up control information corresponding to the sample volume information entered;
- and
- controlling the thermal cycler with the control computer, based on the sample volume information entered, to thermally cycle the sample.
2 more elements
A method for thermal cycling, comprising:
- providing at least one sample tube in a thermal cycler, the at least one sample tube containing a volume of sample;
- entering a thermal time constant into a control computer;
- identifying control information by looking up control information corresponding to the thermal time constant entered;
- and
- controlling the thermal cycler with the control computer, based on the thermal time constant entered, to thermally cycle the sample.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.