BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a samples storage system for pharmaceutical development according to the present invention;
FIG. 2 is top view of a storage rack shown in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line III-III of the storage rack shown in FIG. 2;
FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of the portion encircled at IV in FIG. 3;
FIG. 5 is an enlarged perspective view of the portion encircled at V in FIG. 2;
FIG. 6 is a top view of an ultramicrotube and a storage rack of the present invention shown in FIG. 5;
FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line VII-VII in FIG. 6;
FIG. 8 is a perspective view of conventional ultramicrotubes and a conventional storage rack; and
FIG. 9 is a part of a cross-sectional view of other conventional ultramicrotubes and a storage rack.
PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
Next, a preferable example of a samples storage system for pharmaceutical development according to the present invention will be described with reference to drawings.
In the drawings, four ultramicrotubes 120 are accommodated in a storage rack 110. The storage rack 110, which is one of components of a samples storage system for pharmaceutical development of the present invention, has a rack frame 114 and lower engagement partition walls 116 forming grid pattern of open-ended receptacles inside the rack frame. It is noted that the outermost walls 116, which are adjacent the rack frame, are spaced inwardly of the inside of the inner walls 118 of the rack 114, and the height of all of the partition walls 116 is less than the length of the associated ultramicrotubes. Tube-supporting pins 112 extend vertically upwardly from the respective intersections of the grid.
As shown in FIGS. 5 and 7, the pins 112 taper upwardly from the intersections to guide the ultramicrotubes into the receptacles when loading the rack, and the ultramicrotubes do not come into contact with the rack wall 118, and as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, the outermost side ultramicrotube 120 is held, like other ultramicrotubes, by lower engagement partition walls 116 forming grid pattern sections inside than the length of the respective ultramicrotubes and four tube supporting pins 112 vertically upwardly provided from the respective intersections of the grid of the engagement partition walls 116. Therefore, the outermost side ultramicrotube 120 does not come into contact with a rack side wall 118.
As apparent from FIGS. 6 and 7, the ultramicrotube 120 has a rectangular hollow tubluar cross-section and is tapered toward a bottom surface 121 and corner portions 120 on the outer four side surfaces of the ultramicrotube 120 are chamfered. The ultramicrotube 120 has step portions 124 forming a shoulder at positions where the ultramicrotube 120 abuts on upper surfaces of the engagement partition walls 116, and this shoulder prevents the ultramicrotube 120 from slipping down past the upper surfaces of the engagement partition walls 116. Although the outer bottom surface of the ultramicrotube 120 is flat, the inner bottom surface 123 of the ultramicrotube 120 has inclined surfaces toward the center of the inner bottom, like a square pyramid. This shape makes the residues of solution extremely small when the solution in the ultramicrotube 120 is extracted by a pipet or the like.
Further, as shown in FIG. 7, tube locking convex projections 125 are provided on the respective outer four side surfaces at a lower portion of the ultramicrotube 120. When the ultramicrotube 120 is being inserted into an accommodation portion 113, which is one of sections of a grid pattern surrounded by four engagement partition walls 116, the tube locking convex projection 125 comes into contact with the upper surfaces of the engagement partition walls 116. One or both of the engagement partition walls 116 and the tube locking convex projections 125 are elastically deformed so that the tube locking convex projections 125 are slipped down below the engagement partition walls 116. It is noted that since the outermost partition wall 116 is spaced from the frame side wall 118, the wall 116 is free to deflect, which enables the projection 125 to pass through the receptacle.
At this time since the engagement partition walls 116 and the tube locking convex projections 125 come into point contact with each other and the height of the engagement partition wall 116 is smaller than the length of the ultramicrotube 120, the ultramicrotube 120 can be inserted into the storage rack 110 by smaller force as compared with the conventional storage rack 910 for tubes shown in FIG. 9 for example. Further, once the tube locking convex projections 125 are slipped down below the engagement walls 116, even if vibration is applied to the storage rack 110, the ultramicrotube 120 does not come out of the storage rack 110. When a specified ultramicrotube 120 accommodated in the storage rack 110 is pulled out through the top of the rack, it can be easily pulled out by sticking a probe against the bottom of the tube through the lower side of the storage rack 110. In the event it is desired to extract the microtube through the bottom of the rack, the step portions 124 on the microtube may be replaced by convex projections similar to the projections 125.
In the above-mentioned example, an embodiment has been disclosed in which the tube locking convex projections are provided on four side surfaces of the lower portion of the ultramicrotubes 120 at the same distance from the bottom surface of the ultramicrotube 120. However, various examples of numbers, sizes and distances from the bottom and the like of the tube locking convex projections are considered.
Patent Application
20070251892
