Automated microdissection instrument for determining a location of a laser beam projection on a worksurface area

• US 10,156,501 B2
• Filed: 02/16/2017
• Issued: 12/18/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Life Technologies Corporation (Thermo Fisher Scientific Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Life Technologies Corporation (Thermo Fisher Scientific Incorporated)
• Inventors: Baer, Thomas M., Youngquist, Michael G., Donovan, Brian W., Wessel, Alan E., Leclerc, Norbert H., Smith, Michael A., Barker, Craig S., Dawson, George M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lapage, Michael P
• Application Number:
  US15/434,200
• Publication Number:
  US 20170284907A1
• Time in Patent Office: 670 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 11/002 for measuring two or more coordinates
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 1/2813 Producing thin layers of samples on a substrate, e.g. smearing, spinning-on G01N1/30 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2001/282 with mapping; Identification of areas; Spatial correlated pattern
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2001/284 using local activation of adhesive, i.e. Laser Capture Microdissection
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 156/10 Methods of surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 156/1054 and simultaneously bonding [e.g., cut-seaming]

Abstract

Systems and methods for automated laser microdissection are disclosed including automatic slide detection, position detection of cutting and capture lasers, focus optimization for cutting and capture lasers, energy and duration optimization for cutting and capture lasers, inspection and second phase capture and/or ablation in a quality control station and tracking information for linking substrate carrier or output microdissected regions with input sample or slide.

Claims

1. A method for automatically determining the location of a laser beam projection on a worksurface area of a laser microdissection instrument that is operatively coupled to a microprocessing device and a digital image acquisition system containing a digital image sensor, the method comprising the steps of:

emitting a laser beam from a laser used in a cut-and-capture microdissection of a biological sample at an intensity at a level sufficient to be detected by the digital image sensor;

detecting the sufficient light intensity of the laser beam by the digital image sensor;

determining the pixel location of the laser beam on the digital image sensor;

converting the pixel location of the laser beam on the digital image sensor to a coordinate location corresponding to the worksurface area; and

assigning the coordinate location to the location of the laser beam, wherein the coordinate location establishes a zeroed location.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting a sufficient light intensity of the laser beam includes turning off background illumination.

3. The method of claim 1 further including, controlling the movement of the laser beam relative to the worksurface from the assigned zeroed coordinate location to a target location of an area of interest of a biological sample.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting a sufficient light intensity of the laser beam includes increasing the intensity of the laser beam.