The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 02, 2003
Filed:
Nov. 21, 2001
W. Peter Hansen, Canaan, NY (US);
Union Biometrica, Inc., Somerville, MA (US);
Abstract
An instrument for analyzing and dispensing objects larger than about 70 &mgr;m in diameter is based on a flow cytometer with a novel fluidic switch arrangement for diverting a portion of a sample stream in response to detector signals in a flow cell. The instrument is particularly adapted for dispensing multicellular test organisms like nematodes or large microspheres for use in screening large libraries of potential pharmaceutical agents. Hydrodynamic focussing is used to center and align the objects in the flow cell. The objects pass through a sensing zone where optical or other characteristics of the objects are detected. The detector signals are processed and used to operate a fluidic switch that is located downstream from the sensing zone. The fluid stream containing the detected objects emerges from the flow cell into air where a fluid stream controlled by the fluidic switch diverts portions of the stream containing no sample objects or sample objects not meeting predetermined characteristics. The undiverted sample stream deposits selected sample objects into a plurality of containers.