Methods and apparatus for high throughput plate to plate or plate to membrane transfer
AssigneePharmacopeia, Inc.
InventorsJonathan J. Burbaum, Stephen Skwish, Timothy Pryor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Techniques for high throughput parallel separation, filtration and plate-to-plate transfer are described. Cells, proteins, chemical compounds and the like are being developed in multi-well, small volume well plates, such as 1536-well plates having wells of a volume on the order of 1 μl. A mechanism for clamping such plates together so that the wells will be aligned allows rapid separation or transfer by simply centrifuging the assembly. A membrane may be clamped between the plates. Alternatively, a membrane may replace one of the plates. Centrifuge dependent and independent designs are described.
Claims14
An apparatus for high throughput centrifugal parallel plate to membrane transfer of liquid contained within a plurality of wells of a multi-well plate to a membrane, the apparatus comprising:
- the multi-well plate, the wells having a closed bottom and a sufficiently small volume such that the liquid contained in the wells does not flow from the wells when the multi-well plate is placed in an inverted position;
- the membrane having a first side coextensive in area with and adjacent to the large plurality of wells of the multi-well plate and a second side;
- a first compression plate disposed adjacent to the multi-well plate;
- a second compression plate disposed adjacent the second side of the membrane;
- and
- a clamping mechanism for clamping the first compression plate, the multi-well plate, the membrane, and the second compression plate in a multi-layer sandwich.
An apparatus for high throughout centrifugal parallel plate to plate transfer of liquid contained within a plurality of wells of a first multi-well plate to a second multi-well plate, the apparatus comprising:
- a first compression plate;
- the first multi-well plate having a plurality of closed bottom wells having a sufficiently small volume such that the liquid contained in the wells does not flow from the wells when the multi-well plate is placed in an inverted position, said first multi-well plate being disposed adjacent to the first compression plate;
- the second multi-well plate disposed adjacent to the first multi-well plate;
- a second compression plate disposed adjacent to the second multi-well plate;
- and
- a clamping mechanism for clamping the first compression plate, the first multi-well plate, the second multi-well plate, and the second compression plate in a multi-layer sandwich.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.