Automated analyzer for clinical laboratory

摘要

A laboratory automation system that is capable of carrying out clinical chemistry assays, immunoassays, amplification of nucleic acid assays, and any combination of the foregoing, said laboratory automation system employing at least one of micro-well plates and deep multi-well plates as reaction vessels. The use of micro-well plates as reaction vessels enables the laboratory automation system to assume a variety of arrangements, i.e., the laboratory automation system can comprise a variety of functional modules that can be arranged in various ways. In order to effectively carry out immunoassays by means of micro-well plates, a technique known as inverse magnetic particle processing can be used to transfer the product(s) of immunoassays from one micro-well of a micro-well plate to another.

主权项

1. A laboratory automation system to perform clinical chemistry assays and immunoassays on a plurality multi-well plates, the system comprising:
an immunoassay module configured to perform immunoassays on a first multi-plate, the immunoassay module including:
an incubator:a luminescence reader; anda magnetic particle processor to mix and wash contents of the first multi-well plate; a clinical chemistry assay module configured to perform clinical chemistry assays on a second multi-well plate, the clinical chemistry assay module including:
an absorbance reader;a mixer; andan incubator; an extraction module configured to extract a nucleic acid from a biological sample and to amplify the extracted nucleic acid; a reagent storage module including a first reagent and a second reagent; a common platform supporting the immunoassay module, the clinical chemistry assay module, and the extraction module; a multi-well plate storage module disposed on the platform, the multi-well plate storage module including a plurality of storage areas for storing the plurality of multi-well plates; an aspirating/dispensing device; and a controller configured to:
control the aspirating/dispensing device to kit the first multi-well plate by dispensing sample into the first multi-well plate and dispensing the first reagent into the first multi-well plate for an immunoassay analysis;control the immunoassay module to analyze contents of one or more wells of the first multi-well plate by mixing, incubating, washing and reading the contents of the one or more of wells of the first multi-well plate;control the aspirating/dispensing device to kit the second multi-well kit for a clinical chemistry assay analysis while the first multi-well plate is being analyzed by the immunoassay module, the aspirating/dispensing device to kit the second multi-well plate by dispensing sample into the second multi-well plate and dispensing the second reagent into the second multi-well plate; andcontrol the clinical chemistry assay module to analyze contents of one or more wells of the second multi-well plate by mixing, incubating and reading the contents of the one or more wells of the second multi-well plate while the first multi-well plate is being analyzed by the immunoassay module.