Framed Cell Culture Microscopy Slides for Automated Imaging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cell culture microscopy techniques face challenges such as delicate glass handling, random glass slip placement, material selection issues affecting imaging quality, and sample bias during microscopy, leading to broken slides, contamination, and subjective selection of cells for imaging.
Innovation Solution
A microscopy slide with an optically transparent borosilicate glass substrate and a plastic moulded peripheral frame, featuring cell culture regions separated by hydrophobic material, a unique identifier (bar code) for orientation and automated scanning, and a design that simplifies cell culture, fixation, and imaging processes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If glass slips are used for cell culture, then cell adhesion and imaging are enabled, but the glass is delicate and brittle leading to breakage and handling difficulties
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the glass substrate with a plastic frame into a single integrated assembly. The frame provides mechanical strength and protection while the glass maintains its optical and cell adhesion properties. This merging resolves the contradiction by allowing the glass to function as intended while the frame prevents breakage and facilitates handling.
Solution Approach 2:
The plastic frame acts as a protective cushion around the glass substrate before any damage can occur. This pre-protection allows the delicate glass to be handled and transported without fear of breakage, directly addressing the reliability and ease of operation contradiction.
2Ease of manufacture
If glass slips are placed randomly on slides, then mounting is simple, but automatic scanning and focal plane identification become difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The frame includes asymmetric alignment features such as notches or markers at specific positions. These asymmetric elements provide unique orientation cues that enable automated scanning systems to quickly identify and locate the glass assembly without having to scan the entire slide, thus maintaining ease of mounting while enabling automation.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame may incorporate colored markers or fluorescent elements that are visible to automated scanning systems. These visual cues allow the automation system to rapidly detect and orient to the correct focal plane and region of interest, resolving the contradiction between simple mounting and automated scanning capability.
3Productivity
If multiple glass slips are mounted on a single slide, then sample throughput increases, but height differences and focal plane variations increase
Solution Approach 1:
By combining multiple glass substrates into a single framed assembly with a common reference plane, the patent ensures that all glass pieces are held at consistent heights relative to the frame. This merging approach maintains high sample throughput while achieving focal plane consistency across multiple samples.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame provides a uniform reference surface that ensures homogeneous positioning of multiple glass slips. All glass pieces rest on the same planar surface within the frame, eliminating height variations and ensuring that all samples lie in the same focal plane, thus resolving the contradiction between throughput and precision.
4Adaptability or versatility
If manual mounting of glass slips is performed, then flexibility is maintained, but time consumption and user fatigue increase
Solution Approach 1:
The glass substrates are pre-assembled into framed units with alignment features and protective elements already in place. This preliminary action allows the assembled units to be directly transferred to slides without requiring manual manipulation during the mounting process, thus maintaining flexibility while dramatically reducing time consumption and fatigue.
Solution Approach 2:
The framed design is self-aligning and self-positioning due to its geometric features and alignment markers. The system serves itself by automatically orienting and locating on the slide without requiring precise manual positioning, thereby reducing mounting time while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to different experimental configurations.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design enhances handling and imaging precision by reducing breakage, automating slide orientation, and ensuring consistent sample identification, thereby improving the reliability and reproducibility of immunofluorescence imaging in ICC experiments.
Implementation Method 1
The substrate includes cell culture regions in which cells are grown and staining is performed. The regions are separated from each other with hydrophobic material applied to the substrate in all areas except the regions
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a cell culture microscopy slide comprising an optically transparent generally flat supporting surface (20) including upper and lower opposed substrate surfaces (27,28). A peripheral frame (40) surrounds the substrate (20), the frame (40) having a lower frame surface (44) and an upper frame surface (42). The lower frame surface (44) and the lower substrate surface (28) are generally flush. The upper frame surface (42) lies above the upper substrate surface (27), to form a well (32), and the upper and lower frame surfaces (42,44) are continuously flat and generally parallel. The substrate is preferably glass having a thickness of 1.7 mm.