Raised surface assay plate

Abstract

The assay plate includes a substrate having an substrate surface and at least one raised pad extending from the substrate surface. The raised pad includes a substantially planar sample receiving surface configured for holding a sample thereon for in-situ experimentation. The sample receiving surface preferably has at least one sharp edge at the junction between a sidewall coupling the sample receiving surface to the substrate surface. The sample receiving surface is preferably a circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, or octagon shape that is sized to hold a predetermined volume of the sample. A method of using the above described assay plate is also provided. Once a raised pad extending from a substrate is formed, a sample is deposited on the raised pad. Experiments are subsequently performed using the sample on the raised pad.

Description

RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60 / 428,164, filed Nov. 21, 2002, which is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The invention relates generally to a device used for the testing of physical, chemical, biological or biochemical properties, characteristics, or reactions. More particularly, the invention is directed to an assay plate having an array of raised pads or plateaus for receiving samples thereon. [0004] 2. Description of Related Art [0005] Assay plates, otherwise know as assay trays, sample trays, microtiter plates, microplates, well plates, or multi-well test plates, are well known in the art. These assay plates are generally used for chemical or biological experiments, such as the parallel detection and monitoring of biological or chemical reactions, cell growth, virus isolation, titration, toxicity tests, characterization tes...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0015] Another advantage is the unobstructed access to the samples the assay plate provides, since there are no walls surrounding the sample. This allows unobstructed viewing of the sample. This also allows for probes from analytical instruments to get close or even contact each sample without impedance from well walls or other geometric features (e.g., for Raman or other spectroscopy, tack and other material property testing, etc). The open access to the samples also allows for contact with biological substances, such as skin for transdermal experiments or cultured cells and tissue for permeability experiments, membranes, cultured cells, tissue, or synthetic materials, such as artificial membranes may also be used, for e.g., in permeability experiments.

Problems solved by technology

Existing virtual-well-plate designs do not work well with low-surface-tension fluids, since they are designed to contain aqueous samples.

Plates with depressed wells also exhibit problems when working with organic solvent-based fluids, since these liquids tend to wick up the sides of the wells.

Images