Patent ID: 11857974
Assignee: BIO-RAD LABORATORIES, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC B  C  G | IPC B  C  G

Claim 0:
1. A method of controlling a chemical reaction, the method comprising:
creating a first thermal zone and a second thermal zone in a reaction chamber, the first and second thermal zones having different temperatures from one another;
holding an emulsion in the reaction chamber, the emulsion including droplets encapsulated by a carrier fluid and having a density mismatch with the carrier fluid, each of the droplets including one or more reactants for the chemical reaction; and
changing an orientation of the reaction chamber to move the droplets from the first thermal zone to the second thermal zone, such that a rate of the chemical reaction changes in at least a subset of the droplets;
wherein changing an orientation encourages generation of an amplicon corresponding to a target sequence present in at least a subset of the droplets; and
wherein by design at least one of the droplets does not contain the target sequence.