Patent Grant
10456788
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for effecting physical and chemical changes in samples of materials being tested or processed in a laboratory or production facility.
Even with modern technology and advancements with biological devices, it remains relatively difficult to disrupt biological mixtures containing cells, tissues and other liquids that need to be disrupted in a laboratory setting. The most common methods of cell disruption rely on machines that oscillate microtubes. However, these machines are often noisy and disruptive in a lab. Further, they often do not provide efficient controllable oscillation to ensure a desired result is achieved. Additionally, known machines often can not be used in refrigerators or in cold environments, which limits the usefulness of such machines.
Thus, a way to disrupt cell and tissue samples in multi-well cell plates capable of being performed efficiently and in cold environments is need.
The disclosed system and apparatus is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.
The objects of the present invention are accomplished by an apparatus and system for disrupting substances contained in multi-well plates. The apparatus and system having a housing that has a box holder to receive one of said multi-well plates, and the box holder is mounted for reciprocative or oscillatory movement inside the housing. The apparatus and system further having a pair of substantially coextensive guide rod having their respective ends rigidly fastened to spaced apart portions of the housing so as to be immovable therein and a compression spring carried coextensive with a guide rod slider located on said guide rod. In one embodiment, one of said guide rods have an end fixed with respect to said housing and the guide rod slider is fixed with respect to said box holder, so as to normally bias said box holder in a direction away from said fixed end of said spring.
The apparatus and system can further have an electric motor and a ratchet wheel fixedly carried in said housing and turnable by operation of said electric motor. The ratchet wheel can have two cam surfaces at its periphery and a cam surface on said box holder, and the cam surface and box holder are continuously spring biased by said compression spring into engagement with the cam surfaces of the ratchet wheal with one cam surface at a time to reciprocate the box holder against the force of the compression spring as the ratchet wheel is turnably driven by the electric motor. The reciprocative or oscillatory movement of the box plate will result in correspondent of said multi-well plate and disruption of said substances in said wells.
Certain terminology and derivations thereof may be used in the following description for convenience in reference only and will not be limiting. For example, words such as “upward,” “downward,” “left,” and “right” would refer to directions in the drawings to which reference is made unless otherwise stated. Similarly, words such as “inward” and “outward” would refer to directions toward and away from, respectively, the geometric center of a device or area and designated parts thereof. References in the singular tense include the plural, and vice versa, unless otherwise noted.
The preceding and following embodiments and descriptions are for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of this disclosure. Other aspects and advantages of this disclosure will become apparent from the following detailed description.
Embodiments of the present disclosure are described in detail below with reference to the following drawings. These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings. The drawings described herein are for illustrative purposes only of selected embodiments and not all possible implementations and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure.
In the Summary above and in this Detailed Description, and the claims below, and in the accompanying drawings, reference is made to particular features (including method steps) of the invention. It is to be understood that the disclosure of the invention in this specification includes all possible combinations of such particular features. For example, where a particular feature is disclosed in the context of a particular aspect or embodiment of the invention, or a particular claim, that feature can also be used, to the extent possible, in combination with and/or in the context of other particular aspects and embodiments of the invention, and in the invention generally.
The term “comprises” and grammatical equivalents thereof are used herein to mean that other components, ingredients, steps, among others, are optionally present. For example, an article “comprising” (or “which comprises”) components A, B and C can consist of (i.e., contain only) components A, B and C, or can contain not only components A, B, and C but also contain one or more other components.
Where reference is made herein to a method comprising two or more defined steps, the defined steps can be carried out in any order or simultaneously (except where the context excludes that possibility), and the method can include one or more other steps which are carried out before any of the defined steps, between two of the defined steps, or after all the defined steps (except where the context excludes that possibility).
The term “at least” followed by a number is used herein to denote the start of a range beginning with that number (which may be a range having an upper limit or no upper limit, depending on the variable being defined). For example, “at least 1” means 1 or more than 1. The term “at most” followed by a number (which may be a range having 1 or 0 as its lower limit, or a range having no lower limit, depending upon the variable being defined). For example, “at most 4” means 4 or less than 4, and “at most 40%” means 40% or less than 40%. When, in this specification, a range is given as “(a first number) to (a second number)” or “(a first number)-(a second number),” this means a range whose limit is the second number. For example, 25 to 100 mm means a range whose lower limit is 25 mm and upper limit is 100 mm.
Certain terminology and derivations thereof may be used in the following description for convenience in reference only, and will not be limiting. For example, words such as “upward,” “downward,” “left,” and “right” would refer to directions in the drawings to which reference is made unless otherwise stated. Similarly, words such as “inward” and “outward” would refer to directions toward and away from, respectively, the geometric center of a device or area and designated parts thereof. References in the singular tense include the plural, and vice versa, unless otherwise noted.
The present description includes one or more embodiments for various disruption apparatus and systems that may be used for disruption of cell and tissue samples inside multi-well plates by oscillating the plates horizontally. In one or more embodiments, a disruption apparatus may or may not include one or more methods for disrupting cell and tissue samples inside multi-well plates. Elements included herein are meant to be illustrative, rather than restrictive. Persons having ordinary skill in the art relevant to the present disclosure may understand there to be equivalent elements that may be substituted with the present disclosure without changing the essential function or operation of the disruption apparatus.
The figures below contain reference numerals, and a listing of reference numerals is as follows:
Turning to
Cells or tissues to be disrupted are placed into the wells 5 together with liquid components and beads or particles and are subjected to disruption for various test procedures. At the top of the housing 3 there are removable covers 2, one cover for one plate, closing the plate inside the housing to bar access of the operator's hands to the plate when the apparatus is functioning. In one embodiment, during the disruption process the wells 5 must be water tight and tightly closed with respect to one another. Accidental cross contamination of disrupting media placed in different wells must be carefully avoided.
Such closure is usually achieved by using one sided sticky scotch-like film which closes the mouths of the wells 5 by means of the adhesive character of the sticky film.
Box 7 comprises two covers, the first cover 41 and the second cover 42. In one embodiment, during use the covers are at open and closed ends of the wells 5, respectively, and there are latches 40 releasably connecting the first and second covers 41 and 42 at the sides of the box 7. In this embodiment, inside the first cover 41, the gasket 6 of elastic rubber-like material faces toward the open ends of the wells 5. The gasket is glued, or fixedly attached by another means, to the first cover 41 such that when the covers are forced toward each other and secured together by latches 40, there is established a reliable closure of the open ends of the wells 5 as needed during the disruption process. This in turn prevents cross contamination of the cells and tissues to be disrupted.
In one embodiment during operation, box 7 and the plate 4 it is inserted into are so oriented that—the wells 5 assume a horizontal position. Box 7 also includes a guiding means in the form of a tongue, for easy attachment and removal of the box from a cooperable groove in a box holder 8 (as shown in
In one embodiment, between two adjacent teeth 13, the ring first end 81 and the ring second end 82 are spaced a different distance from the axis of rotation of the ring 12. As a result, at the border of two adjacent teeth 13 there is formed a step 14. In this embodiment, each box holder 8 includes a wedge 15 that functions as a cam lug. The cam lugs are engaged by the teeth 13 and steps 14 of the ring which for cam ramps on the ring 15 as it rotates and interacts with the wedge 15. Thus, the surfaces of the wedges 15 provide for smooth sliding of the teeth 13 therearound when the ring 12 is turnably power driven. This sliding causes substantially horizontal forces resulting in periodic opposite displacement of the box holders in directions outward from the rotating ring. Each box holder 8 is supported by two guide rod sliders 16 that are located on a guide rod 21, inside the housing 1 and the resulting movement of each box holder is along the rod 16 in a reciprocating manner as can be readily seen in
Springs 17, each concentric with the two guide rods 21 respectively, are installed between the housing 1 and in constant contact with the guide rod sliders 16, in this embodiment, are fixed from making any vertical movement but are slideable horizontally along the guide rods 16. In this embodiment, each of the box holders 8 are attached to one or more guide rod sliders 16. Accordingly, the spring forces applied to the holder(s) 8 provide continuous pressure on each plate holder, counteracting the horizontal force applied to each of the two plate holders when the rotating ring turns. These forces cause the oscillations of the plate holders when the rotating ring turns, which in turn cause horizontal oscillation of the plates, and consequent horizontal reciprocating of the wells and their contents.
In one embodiment, a guide rod stop 22 on the guide rod 21 in-between the two box holders 8 can be used. In this embodiment, the stop serves the purpose of allowing the guide rod slider 16 to move past the location of the stop. In a non-limiting embodiment, this is used to control the oscillations of the plates by limiting their horizontal lengths. In a further embodiment, the guide rod stops 22 can be moved along the guide rod 21 to adjust the oscillation lengths, wherein the closer the box holder 8 is to the teeth, the further the teeth can push the box holder away from the ring 12.
In the
From the above it can be seen that we have provided a novel and improved disrupter apparatus 100 that is simple in its structural features, and reliable in operation. It is to be noted that the apparatus can operate quietly by installation of the covers, and is capable of operation in a cool environment, such as a laboratory cooling mechanism, or a refrigerator. The disruptor apparatus 100 as described thus constitutes a distinct advance and improvement with respect to existing oscillating systems and constructions heretofore known.
It is noted that any of the disruption apparatus as shown in
Advantageously, the present description provides one or more embodiments of various types of disruption apparatuses. Each disruption apparatus depicted herein provides advantages that overcome shortcomings of other types of disruption apparatus that are used conventionally. Further, the various embodiments shown in the figures and described herein accommodate different sized disruption apparatuses and may be used in various applications, including, but not limited, oscillation of cell and tissue samples in multi-well cell plates. It is noted that the various embodiments of disruption apparatuses presented herein may be used in many other ways other than to provide oscillation of cell and tissue sample in multi-well cell plates. For example, the various disruption apparatuses can be used for effecting physical and chemical changes in samples of materials being tested or processed in a laboratory or production facility. Thus, the various embodiments described in the present description include a number of novel and helpful components that provide enhanced apparatuses to benefit a user.
The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. The present invention according to one or more embodiments described in the present description may be practiced with modification and alteration within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Thus, the description is to be regarded as illustrative instead of restrictive of the present invention.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/709,674 filed Jan. 26, 2018, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20040256963 | Affleck | Dec 2004 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20190232295 A1 | Aug 2019 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62709674 | Jan 2018 | US |
