Electrophoretic sample excitation light assembly

Patent · Tue Apr 02 00:00:00 EST 2002

OSTI ID:879607

Li, Qingbo; Liu, Changsheng

An automated electrophoretic system is disclosed. The system employs a capillary cartridge having a plurality of capillary tubes. The cartridge has a first array of capillary ends projecting from one side of a plate. The first array of capillary ends are spaced apart in substantially the same manner as the wells of a microtitre tray of standard size. This allows one to simultaneously perform capillary electrophoresis on samples present in each of the wells of the tray. The system includes a stacked, dual carrousel arrangement to eliminate cross-contamination resulting from reuse of the same buffer tray on consecutive executions from electrophoresis. The system also has a gel delivery module containing a gel syringe/a stepper motor or a high pressure chamber with a pump to quickly and uniformly deliver gel through the capillary tubes. The system further includes a multi-wavelength beam generator to generate a laser beam which produces a beam with a wide range of wavelengths. An off-line capillary reconditioner thoroughly cleans a capillary cartridge to enable simultaneous execution of electrophoresis with another capillary cartridge. The streamlined nature of the off-line capillary reconditioner offers the advantage of increased system throughput with a minimal increase in system cost.

• Research Organization: Spectrumedix Corporation, State College, PA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-97ER82461
• Assignee: Spectrumedix Corporation (State College, PA)
• Patent Number(s): 6,364,516
• Application Number: 09/379,593
• OSTI ID: 879607
• Resource Relation: Patent File Date: 1999 Aug 24
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English