REAGENT STORE

摘要

An automated analyzer with an on-board fridge for long-term cooling of reagents, and a method for isolating and analyzing an analyte comprising long-term cooling of reagents.

主权项

1. A method of providing reagent cassettes to an analytical system comprising the steps of:
a) loading a plurality of reagent cassettes onto a drawer of a stacker unit, said reagent cassettes include at least one RFID tag for reading and writing information related to time said reagent cassette is onboard the analytical system, the at least one RFID tag including an incrementing time counter; b) identifying said reagent cassettes using an RFID reader; c) automatically transferring said reagent cassettes from said drawer into a closed reagent store by an elevator into said reagent store; d) positioning said reagent cassettes within said reagent store; e) transferring instructions from a control unit to said reagent store; wherein said instructions specify which reagent cassettes are required by the analytical system; f) removing a reagent cassette from the reagent store using said elevator and triggering the incrementing time counter to start to incrementally count during the time the reagent cassette is outside of the reagent store to determine the on-board time; g) transporting said reagent cassette with said elevator to a station for presenting said reagent cassette to the analytical system, said station being located on a processing plate; h) returning said reagent cassette to said reagent store when the on-board time is less than a preset value and stopping the incrementing counter or transferring said reagent cassette to a waste station when the on-board time exceeds a preset value.