公开(公告)号：US11077441B2

公开(公告)日：2021-08-03

申请号：US15578455

申请日：2016-06-03

Applicant: SPHERE FLUIDICS LIMITED

Inventor： Frank F. Craig ,  Marian Rehak ,  David Holmes ,  Clive A. Smith ,  Xin Liu ,  Giuseppe Benazzi ,  Xin Li ,  Vinayaka Pawate ,  Robert Frank Marchington ,  Richard Francis Day ,  Michael Stuart Hazell

IPC: B01L3/00 ,  G01N35/08 ,  G01N15/14 ,  C12M1/00

Abstract: Instruments and cartridges for processing droplets in emulsions containing biological entities such as cells. A method of such processing comprises providing a plurality of the entities in a fluid; preparing a droplet from the fluid; determining whether the droplet contains one or more entities of said plurality of entities, or whether said droplet does not contain a said entity; sorting said droplet dependent on an outcome of the determination; and dispensing the sorted droplet into a reservoir. The dispensing may comprise identifying and extracting the sorted droplet from a first fluidic flow path of said fluid by transferring the sorted droplet from into a second fluidic flow path and then ejecting the sorted droplet into a reservoir by applying pressure to the second fluidic flow path. The droplet contents may be tracked so that the contents of an individual droplet can be sorted, selectively dispensed, and retrieved.