Panasonic Corporation

Shimadzu Corporation

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Shimadzu Coproation

Akihiro Arai

Fumitomo Yamasaki

Kousei Sano

Shin-ichi Kadowaki

Hiroaki Yamamoto

Tomotada Kamei

Katsuhiko Yasuda

Hideki Aikoh

Takayuki Nagata

Joji Anzai

Takao Hayashi

Eishin Mori

Toru Nakamura

Yoshiaki Komma

Tohru Nakamura

Hiroshi Shibata

Takeharu Yamamoto

Nobuhiro Hanafusa

Koji Tanimizu

Michihiro Yamagata

Yasuhiro Tanaka

Katsuhiko Hayashi

Hideki Nakata

Toshiyasu Tanaka

Tetsuo Saimi

Takashi Kishimoto

Yosuke Iwata

Hiroaki Nakanishi

Syougo Horinouchi

Akira Harada

Yoichi Yamamoto

Toru Kaji

Hidesato Kumagai

Ryo Tateno

Yoshihisa Harada

Taigo Nishida

Yoshirou Kashiwabara

A microfluidic system includes a chip holder that holds a microchip including a plurality of reservoirs, a chip cover, a sealing member; a dispensing probe, a suction mechanism, a first storage where a first cleaning solution is stored, a second storage where a second cleaning solution is stored, a pump, a channel switch, and a controller. The channel switch is configured to switch between a channel through which the first cleaning solution is suctioned from the first storage and a channel through which the second cleaning solution is suctioned from the second storage. The controller controls operations of the channel switch and the pump.

Microfluidic system

A controller sets a schedule in which an order of a plurality of electrophoresis processes is defined. The controller controls a storage device to store first information representing a result of an electrophoresis process that has ended among the plurality of electrophoresis processes and second information about setting for the plurality of electrophoresis processes. The controller receives a stop signal from an information processing apparatus while the plurality of electrophoresis processes defined in the schedule are being performed. When the controller receives the stop signal, the controller controls an electrophoresis mechanism to perform until the end, an electrophoresis process that is being performed among the plurality of electrophoresis processes. When the controller receives the stop signal, the controller maintains storage of the first information stored in the storage device and the second information on an electrophoresis process that has not yet been performed among the plurality of electrophoresis processes.

Electrophoresis apparatus, electrophoresis system, and method of controlling electrophoresis apparatus

A microchip electrophoresis apparatus includes a microchip, a dispensing part, a suction part, and a control part. The control part is configured to perform a buffer solution filling step and a liquid surface aligning step. In the buffer solution filling step, a buffer solution is filled in a channel of the microchip, and also a liquid surface level of the buffer solution in a first reservoir and a liquid surface level of the buffer solution in a second reservoir provided on the other end of the channel are set to a predetermined level or more. The liquid surface aligning step is performed after the buffer solution filling step. In the liquid surface aligning step, tips of a first suction nozzle and a second suction nozzle are lowered from above the first reservoir and the second reservoir to the predetermined level while allowing the first suction nozzle and the second suction nozzle to perform suction operation, such that the buffer solution in the first reservoir and the second reservoir is sucked in order from a surface layer side, and aligning the liquid surface level of the first reservoir with the liquid surface level of the second reservoir.

Microchip electrophoresis apparatus and microchip electrophoresis method

It is an object to repeatedly use a microchip without complicating the structure of the microchip, as well as not impairing cost and operability. A seal-attached memberis disposed facing a microchipheld by a chip holding unit, and has through holes-and-provided at positions corresponding to reservoirs-and-, respectively, and elastic membersthat are pressed against the microchipso as to maintain airtightness between the through holes-and-and the corresponding reservoirs-and-. When the inside of a flow pathof the microchipis cleaned, a dispensing probeis inserted into the through hole-while airtightness between the through hole-and the dispensing probeis maintained. Then, a suction nozzle-is inserted into the through hole-. In this state, the dispensing probedischarges a cleaning liquid to cause the cleaning liquid to flow from the reservoir-under the pressurizing port through hole-into the flow path, and the suction nozzle-sucks the cleaning liquid discharged from the flow pathto the reservoir-

Microchip electrophoresis apparatus

The electrophoresis method includes the following steps: electrically injecting a sample into an electrophoresis flow path through one end thereof; subjecting the injected sample to electrophoresis to be separated by applying a voltage to both ends of the electrophoresis flow path; detecting the separated sample component at a detection position of the electrophoresis flow path; obtaining a peak area of the detected sample component; and correcting the obtained peak area on the basis of an injection rate of each sample component. Correction based on the injection rate includes, a correction based on a relative mobility of the sample component and at least one of: a correction based on the linear velocity at the time of sample injection for each sample component and a correction based on the current integral value at the time of sample injection.

Electrophoresis device

In a capillary electrophoresis device, detection window sections of a plurality of capillaries are arranged, and a capillary cassette is mounted and used, the capillary cassette having an excitation-side positioning part and a fluorescence-side positioning part so as to hold the detection window section array therebetween. The capillary electrophoresis device includes an excitation optical system unit and a fluorescence-receiving unit having positioning parts positioned to the capillary cassette. The excitation optical system unit includes a rod-like lens array configured to irradiate an excitation light to each detection window section. The fluorescence-receiving unit includes a rod-like lens array configured to receive a fluorescence from each detection window section, and an optical fiber for each rod-like lens configured to guide fluorescence from the rod-like lens to a detector side.

Capillary electrophoresis device and capillary cassette using the same

A capillary electrophoresis device including a capillary tube, a suction pump for taking liquid, an intake tube whose end is formed vertically downward, a connection block in which there is an intake flow path that holds the end of the capillary tube and connecting the suction pump to the intake tube, a sample storage unit which contains a sample and has an upward opening into which the tip of the intake tube may be inserted, an intake tube access mechanism to insert the tip of the intake tube into the sample storage unit, and a voltage application mechanism that applies an electric potential difference across the capillary tube.

Resolution maps for size segments to which the size range of the measurement sample extends are retrieved. A high resolution region is extracted from the retrieved size segment resolution maps. After extracting the high resolution regions, the resolution maps are overlaid, the region where the high resolution regions overlap is taken as a high resolution overlap region, and the composition of a point within that high resolution overlap region is determined as the composition of a separation medium appropriate for separation of the measurement sample. The separation media A, B and C are mixed so as to achieve the determined composition, thereby preparing a mixed separation medium to be used for separation of the measurement sample.

Method and apparatus for determining an optimal separation medium for electrophoresis

The present invention provides a cleaning method by which the performance of a microchip can be recovered and a cleaning liquid. A method for cleaning a microfluidic device comprising: cleaning a channel that is formed in the microfluidic device, has a surface having a polymer coating, and has been brought into contact with a sample containing nucleic acid and/or protein, by bringing the channel into contact with a cleaning liquid comprised only of an organic solvent having solubility in at least the same volume of water at 25&#xb0; C., or a cleaning liquid containing 50 vol % or more of the organic solvent in a buffer solution. The method wherein the buffer solution has a pH of 8 to 10. The method wherein the buffer solution further contains 3 to 8M of a protein denaturant. The method wherein the buffer solution has a pH of 2 to 4.

Method for cleaning microfluidic device and cleaning liquid

A tilt can be detected highly accurately by minimizing the tilt detection error. An optical head includes: an objective lens for converging a light beam from a light source onto an optical disc; a photodetector section receiving the beam, reflected from the disc, at divided areas on its photodetection plane and outputting light detection signals from those areas; and a tilt detecting section for detecting a relative tilt between the lens and disc based on the detection signals. The tilt detecting section generates a first push-pull signal PPbased on the detection signals supplied from a first group of areas, which are arranged symmetrically to a virtual reference line drawn parallel to a disc radial direction and crossing an optical axis, also generates a second push-pull signal PPbased on the detection signals supplied from a second group of areas, different from the first group and also arranged symmetrically to the reference line, changes coefficients k according to the location of the lens in a disc radial direction, and generates a tilt detection signal TLT by TLT=PP&#x2212;k&#xd7;PP

Optical head and optical disc device

An optical head () transmits a light beam to an optical disc (), in which light-transmitting layers largely change in thickness, and includes a degree-of-diversion/convergence enlarging member () fixed between a collimating lens () and an objective lens (). The diversion/convergence enlarging member () reduces a moving range of the collimating lens (), and allows the optical head () to be miniaturized.

The processing apparatus for microchips, each at least having a main flow path performing migration of a sample for analysis inside a sheet-like member, comprises a holding part holding microchips so that the multiple main flow paths are provided; a pretreatment part common to the multiple main flow paths for performing a pretreatment step prior to an analysis step in each of the multiple main flow paths; a processing part for performing analysis in each of the main flow paths independently of the others; and a control part controlling an operation in the pretreatment part so that when a pretreatment step for one main flow path ends, a pretreatment for a next main flow path starts and further controlling an operation in the processing part so that an analysis is subsequently performed for the main flow path where the pretreatment step has ended.

Microchip processing method and apparatus

An optical head includes a diffraction element capable of improving the quality of a TE signal by a DPP method even if light amounts of two sub-spots are unbalanced for optical discs having different groove pitches. In a three-beam optical head, a diffraction element is divided in a radial direction of an optical disc into a first area, a second area and a third area, wherein the second area is further divided into a fourth area and a fifth area. The periodic structure of the first area is displaced from that of the fourth area by a &#xbc; period, the periodic structure of the third area is displaced from that of the first area by a &#xbd; period, and the periodic structure of the fifth area is displaced from that of the third area by a &#xbc; period and from that of the fourth area by a &#xbd; period.

An optical pickup device includes a first laser element that emits first laser light, a second laser element that emits second laser light of which the wavelength is longer than that of the first laser light, an optical path composition element that composes the first laser light and the second laser light to one optical path, a wavelength selective element that acts on the composed first or second laser light; and an objective lens that condenses the first laser light and the second laser light on an optical disk. The magnitude of the power of the wavelength selective element as a lens with respect to the second laser light is larger than the magnitude of the power of the wavelength selective element as a lens with respect to the first laser light. Accordingly, it may be possible to reduce the optical pickup device and the optical disk apparatus in size.

Optical pickup device and optical disk apparatus

The invention provides a tracking control device, a tracking control method, and an optical disc apparatus that enable to stably perform the tracking control, and reduce an influence of stray light from the other layer on the tracking control. A sub push-pull signal correcting section corrects a sub push-pull signal to be generated from returning light of a sub beam in such a manner that a track crossing component of a main push-pull signal to be generated from returning light of a main beam, and a track crossing component of the sub push-pull signal to be generated from the returning light of the sub beam are canceled. A low pass filter reduces a high frequency component of the sub push-pull signal corrected by the sub push-pull signal correcting section. A subtractor subtracts a sub push-pull signal passing the low pass filter from the main push-pull signal to thereby generate a tracking error signal.

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Kyoto, Japan

Akihiro Arai