US 5,567,050 AGranted

Apparatus and method for rapidly oscillating specimen vessels

AssigneeSavant Instruments, Inc.

InventorsYury Zlobinsky, Michael Glater, Frank Grave

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Abstract

Apparatus and method for rapidly oscillating specimen containing vessels such as those used in an RNA recovery operation wherein small sized glass sized beads in the vessel are employed to disrupt the cell walls of an RNA component to release the RNA, includes a specimen vessel holder provided as a disc in which the containers are received. The disc is operably connected with oscillatory motion producing means that in operation oscillates the disc rapidly in an oscillatory movement up and down symmetrically of a fixed vertical axis. The disc is haltered so it cannot rotate about the fixed axis. Locking means in the form of a locking plate locks the vessels on the vessel holder and applies a clamping force thereto to prevent relative movement between the vessels and the holder to prevent generation of heat that could be of deleterious effect to the specimen material or the vessels holding same.

Claims23

Dependent claims

Apparatus for rapidly reciprocally vibrating specimen containing vessels to accelerate specimen material in the vessels to relatively high g levels, said apparatus comprising

a disc shaped vessel holder, the vessel holder having vessel receptive structure arrayed thereon at a plurality of circularly spaced locations proximal a disc edge periphery for receiving and holding up to a corresponding plurality of specimen vessels thereon,
a vertically oriented rotary shaft rotatable about a fixed axis,
a mounting collar fixed on the rotary shaft to rotate therewith, the mounting collar having an outer surface, the said outer surface being symmetrical about an axis skewed longitudinally of the fixed axis, said vessel holder being mounted on said collar outer surface such that the vessel holder vessel receptive structure is symmetrically arrayed with respect to said skewed axis and such that there is relative rotatability between said mounting surface and said vessel holder, the vessel holder when the mounting collar is rotated by rotary shaft rotation and the vessel holder not held, tending to rotate in unison with said mounting collar about the skewed axis but if said vessel holder be held against tendency to rotate with said mounting collar, the vessel holder being caused to oscillate vertically up and down symmetrically of the fixed axis with any given point at the disc edge periphery undergoing one complete oscillation for each rotary shaft revolution,
means for rotating said rotary shaft about said fixed axis, and
means for haltering the vessel holder so that it cannot rotate in unison with the mounting collar.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.