Patent ID: 8592214
Filing Date: 2013-11-26
Classification: B01J,B82Y,C40B,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A method for synthesizing a plurality of polymers comprising: (a) providing a plurality of wells, each well comprising a polymer; (b) dispensing a reagent comprising a reaction component to said plurality of wells under conditions sufficient for said reaction component to be incorporated into said polymer, wherein incorporation of the reaction component into said polymer increases the length of said polymer and yields an optical signal indicative of the increased length of said polymer; (c) obtaining an image of said plurality of wells and saving said image data to computer memory; (d) accessing said image data in computer memory and determining a specific value corresponding to the extent of polymer synthesis within each well based on the optical signal at the time the image was obtained; (e) determining whether a difference between a value expected if the chemical reaction is successful and the specific value indicates failure of the chemical reaction within a well; (f) determining a batch quality for the plurality of polymers; and (g) repeating steps (b) through (f), wherein said dispensing is to at least one well where failure of the chemical reaction is not indicated, while discontinuing dispensing to one or more wells where failure of the chemical reaction is indicated, wherein said repeating is discontinued if the batch quality is less than a threshold batch quality.