Patent ID: 8929630
Filing Date: 2015-01-06
Classification: G01N,G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. A nucleic acid sequencing system, comprising: a reaction chamber including a surface with one or more nucleic acid molecules disposed on said surface, wherein said surface is populated with a plurality of labeled oligonucleotide probes arranged in a plurality of panels, and wherein said plurality of oligonucleotide probes generate detectable signals and query the sequence of at least a portion of said one or more nucleic acid molecules; an imaging system, including a focus component and an exposure component, configured to image said surface to detect said detectable signals and form images of said panels used in sequencing of said at least a portion of said one or more nucleic acid molecules; a processor configured to assess the quality of said images based on a comparison of a measured signal distribution of a feature in said image with a reference signal distribution of the feature, wherein said assessment indicates whether an image of a panel is non-optimal because the focus is outside of a preselected range, the image exposure is outside of a preselected range, or the image is elongated by reaction chamber vibration; the processor configured to determine, based on said assessment, whether to perform a rescue operation for an image of a panel and how to perform said rescue operation, wherein said rescue operation includes reacquiring said panel image based on either a predicted focusing surface position or an increased delay after reaction chamber movement; the processor configured to add a non-optimal panel to a rescue queue, based on said determination, with at least information identifying at least one non-optimal panel and a corresponding type of rescue to be performed for said at least one non-optimal panel; and the processor configured to correct for said at least one condition by instructing the imaging system to reacquire said panel images based on said rescue queue; the processor configured to reassess the image quality of said reacquired images and designate each as either acceptable or non-rescuable.