Nuclea Biotechnologies of Pittsfield, Mass., has received US Patent No. 8,278,034, "Methods of making frozen tissue microarrays." The patent provides methods of preparing microarrays consisting of frozen tissues and cell samples. By using frozen samples, the microarrays provide samples from which to detect the expression of both nucleic acids and proteins in high-throughput parallel analyses, the inventors claim. These arrays enable gene identification, molecular profiling, selection of drug targets, sorting and prioritizing of expressed sequence array data, and the identification of abnormal physiological processes associated with disease.
Nestec of Vevey, Switzerland, has received US Patent No. 8,278,057, "Addressable antibody arrays and methods of use." An assay method for detecting an autoantibody in a sample from a subject is claimed. It includes contacting a tagged antigen on a support with a sample having an autoantibody specific for the antigen, in order to transform the autoantibody into an immunological pair. The immunological pair is then contacted with a solid support having a binding member that transforms the pair into a protein complex. The protein complex is separated from the sample to form an isolated protein complex and the tag is released from the isolated protein complex for detection.
Illumina of San Diego has received US Patent No. 8,278,630, "Compensator for multiple surface imaging." The patent claims a method for imaging biological samples on multiple surfaces of a support structure. According to the patent, the support structure may be a flow cell through which a reagent fluid is allowed to flow and interact with the biological samples. Excitation radiation may be used to excite the biological samples on multiple surfaces, producing fluorescent emission radiation that is captured and detected by optics and at least one detector.