Apparatus for robotically performing sanger dideoxynucleotide DNA sequencing reactions using controlled pipet
First Claim
1. A robotic system for automatically performing DNA sequencing, comprising:
- a robot having an arm mounted for motion in vertical and horizontal planes;
a hand for said robot arm having means for pipetting a fluid from a microtiter plate well;
a microtiter plate having a well formed therein, said well having a bottom, a reagent solution contained in said well;
a plurality of work surfaces, each having means for supporting a microtiter plate;
a plurality of reservoirs, each having means for holding a reagent;
first storage means for storing microtiter plates;
sensing means for generating a signal in response to said pipetting means making contact with said microtiter plate well bottom; and
a programmable controller having (i) first logic means for instructing said robot to move said pipetting means toward said microtiter plate well bottom by a series of discrete incremental movements, each of said discrete incremental movements in said series being separated by a finite period of time, said series of incremental movements including a set of incremental movements in which each discrete incremental movement is successively smaller than each previous discrete incremental movement in said set, and (ii) second logic means for determining whether said pipetting means has made contact with said microtiter plate well bottom based on said signal from said sensing means during said finite period of time between each of said discrete incremental movements in said set of movements.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A robotic system for performing nucleic acid sequencing reactions in microtiter plate format. The robot has a robot arm and its controller, robot hands with which it can manipulate microtiter plates with lids and microtiter plates without lids and with which it can perform pipetting in the 5 to 200 microliter range, cooled storage chambers with electronically controllable doors for storage of microtiter plates, cooled storage with an electronically controllable cover for storage of nucleic acid sequencing reagents, heating blocks to incubate the reactions at appropriate temperatures above ambient temperature, storage for boxes of micropipet tips, storage for microtiter plates in which sequence reactions will be performed and software for controlling the operation of the robot during pipetting.
137 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A robotic system for automatically performing DNA sequencing, comprising:
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a robot having an arm mounted for motion in vertical and horizontal planes; a hand for said robot arm having means for pipetting a fluid from a microtiter plate well; a microtiter plate having a well formed therein, said well having a bottom, a reagent solution contained in said well; a plurality of work surfaces, each having means for supporting a microtiter plate; a plurality of reservoirs, each having means for holding a reagent; first storage means for storing microtiter plates; sensing means for generating a signal in response to said pipetting means making contact with said microtiter plate well bottom; and a programmable controller having (i) first logic means for instructing said robot to move said pipetting means toward said microtiter plate well bottom by a series of discrete incremental movements, each of said discrete incremental movements in said series being separated by a finite period of time, said series of incremental movements including a set of incremental movements in which each discrete incremental movement is successively smaller than each previous discrete incremental movement in said set, and (ii) second logic means for determining whether said pipetting means has made contact with said microtiter plate well bottom based on said signal from said sensing means during said finite period of time between each of said discrete incremental movements in said set of movements. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A robotic system for automatically performing reactions in sequence, comprising:
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means for containing a fluid, said fluid containing means having a bottom; a robot having means for drawing a fluid from said fluid containing means, said fluid drawing means normally spaced from said fluid containing means bottom by a distance; means for causing relative motion between said fluid containing means and said fluid drawing means; sensing means for generating a signal in response to said fluid drawing means making contact with said bottom of said fluid containing means; and a programmable controller having (i) first logic means for instructing said relative motion causing means to reduce said distance between said bottom of said fluid containing means and said fluid drawing means by a series of discrete incremental movements, each of said discrete incremental movements in said series being separated by a finite period of time, said series of discrete incremental movements including a set of discrete incremental movements in which each discrete incremental movement is successively smaller than each previous discrete incremental movement in said set, and (ii) second logic means for determining whether said fluid drawing means has made contact with said bottom of said fluid containing means based on said signal from said sensing means during said finite period of time between each of said discrete incremental movements in said set of movements. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification