High throughput system for perfoming assays using electrochemiluminescence including a consumable shaking apparatus
AssigneeMeso Scale Technologies, LLC.
InventorsEli N. GLEZER, Carl EDENS, Bandele JEFFREY-COKER, Sandor KOVACS, Christopher FRYE
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a system for performing assays on a solid phase to measure the level of analyte in a sample. Such a system may perform immunoassays using electrochemiluminescence (ECL) including a counterbalanced orbital shaking apparatus for assay consumables.
Claims19
A method of operating an assay system to analyze a batch of assay plates, wherein
- (i) each plate in said batch undergoes a series of different processing cycles of time length N,
- (ii) for a given plate in said batch, the different processing cycles in said series are separated by incubation periods of at least time Y,
- (iii) each of the different processing cycles in said series is carried out sequentially on the plates in said batch, and
- (iv) the number of plates in the batch is less than or equal to Y/N.
A method of operating an assay system to analyze a sequence of assay plates, wherein
- (i) each plate in said batch undergoes a series of different processing cycles of time length N,
- (ii) at least one of said cycles in said series is an interleaved cycle divided into pre-incubation subcycle of length A and a post-incubation subcycle of length B, wherein A+B=N and for a given plate, the completion of said subcycle of length A and the commencement of said subcycle of length B is separated by an incubation time that is a multiple of time N,
- (iii) carrying out said interleaved cycle on said sequence of plates by
- (a) identifying the first plate in said sequence that has not undergone the pre-incubation subcycle and carrying out said pre-incubation subcycle on it or, if no plates are available for pre-incubation processing then idling for time A and
- (b) identifying the first plate in the sequence that has completed the incubation, but not undergone the post-incubation subcycle and carrying out said post-incubation subcycle on it or, if no plates are available for post-incubation processing then idling for time B, and
- (iv) repeating step (iii) until all the plates in the sequence have undergone the pre-incubation and post-incubation subcycles.
A method of operating an ECL immunoassay system comprising a number of assay plates, wherein each plate is processed completely before a next plate is processed and an incubation period of the plate divided by a processing period for each plate equals the number of plates to be processed.
A method for operating an ECL immunoassay system, said system comprising a pipette dispenser, a plurality of multi-well plates adapted to store ECL complexes attached to electrodes contained in the multi-well plates, an incubator and an ECL reader, said method comprising the following steps:
- a. removing a single multi-well plate from a shelve,
- b. optionally, washing said single multi-well plate,
- c. depositing a sample to be tested into the wells on said single multi-well plate,
- d. depositing at least one reagent to form complexes with analytes in the sample,
- e. optionally, washing said single multi-well plate to remove remaining analytes,
- f. placing the washed single multi-well plate in the incubator,
- g. repeating steps a-f with another single multi-well plate until the incubator is full,
- wherein a period of incubation is the sum of the time to fill the incubator with multi-well plates,
- h. placing a fully incubated multi-well plate in the ECL reader.
An ECL immunoassay system comprising a housing that encloses a pipette dispenser, a plurality of multi-well plates adapted to hold ECL complexes attached to electrodes contained in the plate, an incubator, an ECL reader and a cooler,
- wherein the cooler is located proximate to a back surface of the housing and
- wherein the housing further comprises a flow plenum that directs an air flow from the cooler to a front surface of the housing.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.