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:
Oct. 19, 2004
Filed:
Sep. 30, 2002
Carlos Zarate, Hamilton, CA;
Paul Donders, Stoney Creek, CA;
Ahmad Yekta, St. Catharines, CA;
Zahra Masoumi, St. Catharines, CA;
Peter Ramm, St. Catharines, CA;
Imaging Research Inc., St. Catharines, CA;
Abstract
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for imaging time resolved fluorescence in biochemical and medical samples. In a primary aspect, the device includes a lens of large aperture, a flash lamp in the illumination path, a fast-acting solid state shutter or a gated detector in the emission path, a device for delivering homogenous monochromatic illumination to a plurality of wells distributed within a microwell plate, a digital camera of high quantum efficiency, and a computer under computer control, the lamp is pulsed at short intervals. The fast-acting emission shutter or gated detector operates to limit exposure of the camera to a period some microseconds after the extinction of each lamp pulse, during which only delayed fluorescence is transmitted to the camera. The invention achieves simultaneous time resolved imaging of a plurality of samples, with high sensitivity and high throughput.