In recent years, developments in the field of life sciences have proceeded at a very rapid pace. Universities, hospitals and newly formed companies have made groundbreaking scientific discoveries and advances that promise to reshape the fields of medicine, agriculture, and environmental science. However, the success of these efforts depends, in part, on the development of sophisticated laboratory tools that will automate and expedite the testing and analysis of biological samples. Only upon the development of such tools can the benefits of these recent scientific discoveries be fully achieved.
At the forefront of these efforts to develop better analytical tools is an effort to expedite the analysis of complex biochemical structures. This is particularly true for human genomic DNA, which is comprised of at least about one hundred thousand genes located on twenty four chromosomes. Each gene codes for a specific protein, which fulfills a specific biochemical function within a living cell. Changes in a DNA sequence are known as mutations and can result in proteins with altered or in some cases even lost biochemical activities; this in turn can cause a genetic disease. More than 3,000 genetic diseases are currently known. In addition, growing evidence indicates that certain DNA sequences may predispose an individual to any of a number of genetic diseases, such as diabetes, arteriosclerosis, obesity, certain autoimmune diseases and cancer. Accordingly, the analysis of DNA is a difficult but worthy pursuit that promises to yield information fundamental to the treatment of many debilitating and life threatening diseases.
Analysis of DNA is made particularly cumbersome due to size and the fact that genomic DNA includes both coding and non-coding sequences (e.g., exons and introns). As such, traditional techniques for analyzing chemical structures, such as the manual pipeting of source material to create samples for analysis, are of little value. To address the scale of the necessary analysis, scientists have developed parallel processing protocols for DNA diagnostics.
Robotic pin tool devices used for the accurate and efficient transfer of materials from sample wells to sample test sites have been used for the processing of materials for a great variety of applications. Such devices are frequently used for the processing of fluid DNA samples for mass spectrometry, including MALDI mass spectrometry, genotyping, quantitative gene expression including PCR methods, methylation analysis and SNP discovery. For such processes, a small amount of fluid is taken up by a pin tool from a pre-determined well of a microtiter plate and mapped and deposited to a pre-determined location on another surface, such as a mass spectrometry chip. The control software for the robotics of the robotic pin tool generally will track the transfer of samples from each well of the microtiter plate to the corresponding location on the chip such that a comprehensive mapping of samples is maintained. Once a set of samples have been transferred, the pins may undergo a washing process and may then be used to transfer another set of samples. Such tools and processes greatly enhance the efficiency and reliability of sample handling and processing where a large number of small volume samples need to be processed.
Current devices that perform these procedures are useful, but are generally large, heavy and expensive machines that require the use of large external fluid storage tanks, external computing devices, including desktop units with corresponding keyboard and monitor devices, external plumbing to facility utilities and the like. As a result, a standard pin tool sample transfer machine may take up a large amount of space within a laboratory in which it is being used. In addition, standard pin tool sample transfer devices may be inconvenient to operate and maintain. What has been needed is a robotic sample transfer machine that is small in size and weight relative to existing machines and less expensive than the currently available sample transfer devices. What has also been needed is a robotic sample transfer device that is user friendly, easy and reliable to operate and economical to maintain.