Fluidigm of South San Francisco, Calif., has received US Patent No. 8,282,896, "Devices and methods for holding microfluidic devices." The patent claims a carrier for holding a microfluidic device. It includes a housing with a portion for receiving the microfluidic device; a connection block for retaining the microfluidic device, where the block is attachable to the device through one or more prongs; and the microfluidic device.
The University of California of Oakland has received US Patent No. 8,283,181, "Capillary pins for high-efficiency microarray printing device." The patent provides "improved components," such as array pins, print heads, substrate plates, and print head plates, for microarray printing devices as well as devices that incorporate such components. In one embodiment, the invention consists of a microarray print head containing glass or quartz spotting capillaries that maintains a fixed spacing between the spotting capillaries and that permits the spotting capillaries to move in a direction parallel to the long axis of the capillaries.
Xiaolian Gao and Peilin Yu, both of Houston, Texas, have received US Patent No. 8,283,455, "Reagent compounds and methods of making same." Compounds and methods for capping reactive groups on support and during multistep synthesis are claimed. The reagents are also useful for high-quality synthesis on solid supports and surfaces used as microarrays, biosensors, or in general as biochips, according to the inventors. The compounds are also useful for controlling surface density of reactive groups on a support and may also be used to modify the hydrophilic and hydrophobic characteristics of a surface or a molecule.
Fujifilm of Tokyo has received US Patent No. 8,283,640, "Fluorescence detection method." According to the patent, the claimed method allows fluorescence intensity detection from a labeled biological sample with "high accuracy in shorter time," even when the intensity from the array itself acts as background. This is accomplished by detecting the intensity for a "period from the start of application of excitation light until the intensity sufficiently attenuates," after which the temporal change in fluourescent intensity is measured to gauge the intensity emitted.