Provided herein are apparatus for independently manipulating the temperature of a plurality of reaction vessels, e.g., for automated processing of nucleic acids present in the vessels. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) comprising a mount area arranged to have mounted thereon a through-hole thermoelectric device (TED) to facilitate independent temperature control of reaction vessels are also provided, as well as methods relating to the same.

The present invention provides devices, systems, and methods for rapid and easy-to-use in sample thermal cycling or temperature changes for the facilitation of reactions such as but not limited to PCR.

A system and method of manufacture for the system, comprising a set of heater-sensor dies, each heater-sensor die comprising an assembly including a first insulating layer, a heating region comprising an adhesion material layer coupled to the first insulating layer and a noble material layer, and a second insulating layer coupled to the heating region and to the first insulating layer through a pattern of voids in the heating region, wherein the pattern of voids in heating region defines a coarse pattern associated with a heating element of the heating region and a fine pattern, integrated into the coarse pattern and associated with a sensing element of the heating region; an electronics substrate configured to couple heating elements and sensing elements of the set of heater-sensor dies to a controller; and a set of elastic elements configured to bias each of the set of heater-sensor dies against a detection chamber.

Provided a thermal cycler. In a case in which plurality of heat sinks participate in thermal control of a plurality of thermally independent sample holders for reliable nucleic acid reactions of the plurality of sample holder, a barrier is present between the adjacent heat sinks.

A thermal array has a first heating element, a second, transparent heating element, a first insulator, a second insulator, and a cooling block. The transparent heating element is a layer of glass with one or more heating wires cast into, or coupled onto, the glass, or a thermo-resistive coating sputtered onto one side of the glass. The transparent heating element may further have a temperature sensor to monitor the temperature and thereby ensure that the layer of glass is held at a predetermined temperature. The thermal array includes bandpass light filters to be able to detect the exact fluorescence being produced.

There is described a variable-temperature reactor for hosting a predetermined reaction therein. The reactor comprises a reaction cell, a heater, and a heat sink. The reaction cell has a reaction volume with thickness H.sub.v and width W.sub.v where W.sub.v>4H.sub.v and is defined by faces with one of the larger area faces of the reaction volume being bounded by an outer wall with thickness H.sub.w. The heater is in contact with the said outer wall. The heater comprises a heat-generating heater element located on the face closer to the reaction volume and a heater support on the opposite face. The heater support is in contact with a heat sink, such that the heater support provides a thermal resistance R.sub.T between the heater element and the heat sink. The reactor, when filled with reagents having thermal diffusion coefficient D.sub.v has a diffusion time t.sub.v, in the thickness direction, t.sub.v=H.sub.v.sup.2/D.sub.v. t.sub.v is less than the reaction time constant t.sub.R. The outer wall has a thermal diffusion coefficient D.sub.w and has a thermal diffusion time t.sub.w=H.sub.w.sup.2|D.sub.w<t.sub.v.

Toward forming a single hybrid biosensing-imaging system that can operate inside an incubator, structures and methods are directed to placing modular and removable biosensors and biocompatible interfaces in 3D transparent test wells that contain biological samples. The technology enables continuous monitoring of multiple simultaneous parameters and functions of a living cell or cell clusters such as alterations of cellular ligands, physicochemical biomarkers, phenotypes, and/or extracellular compositions upon interactions with analytes or during progressions. Methods of capturing and analyzing direct orthogonal information from biological samples in 2D and 3D, which are conducive to generating new insights are presented.

An apparatus comprising a magnetic assembly and methods for operating the apparatus are provided. The magnetic assembly may be used to manipulate molecules in a liquid preparation, for example to isolate or separate the molecules from the liquid. The magnetic assembly may be used to wash and/or isolate nucleic acid molecules of interest from a liquid preparation.

A system and method for target material retrieval and processing, the system comprising: an adaptor configured to interface with a capture region of a capture substrate for capturing particles in single-particle format within a set of wells, wherein the adaptor comprises a first region configured to interface with the capture region, a second region, and a cavity extending from the first region to the second region; and a support structure coupled to the adaptor and providing a set of operation modes for movement of the adaptor relative to the capture substrate. The system enables methods for magnetic and/or other force-based methods of retrieval of target material (e.g., derived from single cells).

To provide a reagent cooler reduced in size as compared with that in the related art by reducing a thickness of a heat insulation material of the reagent cooler, and an automated analyzer including the reagent cooler. In the reagent cooler of the automated analyzer, a vacuum heat insulation material is disposed in a periphery (on a side surface, or/and upper and lower portions) of a cooling jacket of the reagent cooler. Then, an end portion of the vacuum heat insulation material is disposed at a position shifted from upper and lower end portions and a side surface end portion of the cooling jacket and a distance between the end portion of the vacuum heat insulation material and the cooling jacket is taken as much as possible.