Aushon Biosystems of Billerica, Mass., has received US Patent No. 7,585,463, "Apparatus and method for dispensing fluid, semi-solid and solid samples." The patent describes microarrayers for depositing minute droplets of biological or chemical fluid samples in ordered arrays onto substrates. It also describes tissue arrayers for the collection and deposition of solid and semi-solid tissue samples in ordered arrays. Fluidics robots for the autonomous collection, dispensing and processing of biological or chemical fluid samples are also claimed.
Hitachi has received US Patent No. 7,585,628, "Method and apparatus for analyzing nucleic acid amplification." The patent claims a method of detecting or analyzing a nucleic acid by sampling a target nucleic acid from not less than two types of target nucleic acid samples with base sequences different in at least one base, and subjecting the sampled nucleic acid sample to detection or analysis. According to the patent, the analysis steps include obtaining the number of copies of initial target nucleic acid from the concentration of a nucleic acid in an initial target nucleic acid sample, and sampling the target nucleic acid of a predetermined number or more of copies from the initial target nucleic acid sample.
Samsung Electronics has received US Patent No. 7,585,634, "Method of predicting risk of lung cancer recurrence, and a composition, kit and microarray for the same." The patent claims a method of predicting risk of lung cancer recurrence in a lung cancer patient or after a patient has lung cancer treatment. The method includes: a) obtaining a biological sample from a lung cancer patient; b) measuring an expression level of at least one marker gene from the biological sample to obtain data for the expression level of the marker gene; and c) determining whether the expression level of the marker gene corresponds to an expression level of a recurrence group or an expression level of a non-recurrence group.
The University of Texas of Austin has received US Patent No. 7,587,282, "Statistical methods for analyzing biological sequences." The patent claims statistical algorithms for identifying evolutionarily conserved amino acid positions within a family of proteins, as well as identifying interacting amino acid positions within a protein sequence. According to the inventors, the algorithms may also be useful in the analysis of other polymer sequences such as polysaccharides, lipids, deoxyribonucleic acid, and ribonucleic acid sequences, and, more specifically, in the analysis of DNA microarray data. Algorithms useful for analyzing the structural changes of perturbations to determine the mechanisms by which positions are coupled are also claimed.