Tecan Trading Ag

Carsten Hase

Philipp Ott

Patrick D Kinney

Thomas Geiges

Adi Zuppiger

Joas Leemann

Philipp Riedel

Matthias Dzung

Pascal Stäheli

Andreas Schenk

David Papencordt

A method for aspirating a first liquid medium of two liquid media of different density from a sample container comprises: lowering a pipette of the laboratory automation device into the sample container until a pipette tip of the pipette has passed a lowering distance from the surface of the first liquid medium in the sample container, wherein the lowering distance is chosen, such that the pipette tip passes at least an aspiration volume in the sample container; aspirating liquid from the sample container during the lowering of the pipette by generating an underpressure in the pipette, wherein the first liquid medium is aspirated, and after the interface and the pipette tip pass each other, the second liquid medium of the two liquid media is aspirated; measuring a pressure in the pipette during the lowering of the pipette and detecting a position of the interface, when a slope of the pressure changes; when the lowering distance has been passed and no interface is detected, aspirating the aspiration volume from the first liquid medium and dispensing the aspiration volume of the first liquid medium into a further sample container.

Iterative liquid aspiration

The invention relates to a pipetting apparatus () having a pipette tip () for aspirating and dispensing liquid samples; a pump () for generating negative pressure or positive pressure in the pipette tip () that is connected to the pipette tip () by means of a pump conduit (); a fluid chamber () defined by the pipette tip () and/or the pump conduit (); a measurement probe () functionally connected to the fluid chamber () for measuring the physical parameters resulting in this fluid chamber () during pipetting; and a device control system () with a processor (), in which an activated computer program product enables the control system () of the pipetting apparatus () to individually accept or reject pipetted liquid samples on the basis of the physical parameters measured. The pipetting apparatus () in accordance with the invention is characterized in that it comprises a data storage device () for storing an actual measured curve () measured during pipetting and a simulated curve () for such a pipetting procedure and also a computer program product that in an activated state enables the processor () of this pipetting apparatus () to generate this simulated curve () and approximate it to the actual measured curve () iteratively to create an iterative curve () and then matching the pipetting and/or the corresponding pipetted liquid samples to one of a plurality of decision-making criteria on the basis of sections of the measured curve () in the actual measured curve () that deviate from defined threshold values () in relation to the corresponding sections of the curve () of the iterative curve (). A corresponding computer program product and method are included within the scope of the invention.

Pipetting apparatus with a computer program product and a method for accepting or rejecting pipetted liquid samples

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Zurich, Switzerland

Carsten Hase