Portable real-time heating and detection device

A portable real-time heating and detection device includes a body, a cover and a detection unit. The body has an opening, and a base. The cover has a control unit and a fix unit. The detection unit is disposed on the base of the body and has a thermostat, an optical excitation, an optical detection, and a circuit board. The thermostat is disposed close to the opening and has at least one thermostat zone. The optical exciter is disposed between the thermostat and the base. The optical detector is disposed between the thermostat and the opening. The circuit board is electrical coupled to the control unit, the thermostat, the optical excitation, and the optical detector, respectively.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application is based on, and claims priority from, Taiwan (International) Application Serial Number 103139622, filed on Nov. 14, 2014, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The technical field relates to a portable real-time heating and detection device.

BACKGROUND

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of the popular nucleic acid amplification techniques in molecular diagnostics. Almost all commercial PCR systems adopt a thermocycler to perform heating and cooling and so as to have the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to experience three typical temperature cycles; denaturation at 95° C., annealing at 45-65° C. and extension at 72° C. In each thermal cycle, a metal block is applied to transfer the heat to the reaction tube by thermal conduction, and a predetermined time is kept for reaction. However, such indirect heating method for PCR would spend lots of time in heating or cooling the metal block. Therefore, it is the reason why the reaction time of the PCR cycles is usually long and the systems for PCR always occupy too much space.

In addition, various developments on PCR chips with micro channels have been announced. In particular, the laboratory on a chip (LOC) is one of those devotions targeted to integrate micro channels and micro structures into the LOC capable of performing various reactions on a single chip, including various specimens' management, reactions, analysis or detections. Expectable advantages of the LOC are size miniaturization, rapid temperature control, reduction in the number of the required samples, cost-down and so on. However, though many researches demonstrate the merits of the PCR and LOC, yet a real mature commercial product of the PCR chip is yet to come. One of the reasons for such a situation in PCR chips is the low repeatability in the related researches. Furthermore, the requirement of a hydraulic driving system also limits the application of the PCR chips. Hence, it can be foreseen that the appearance of a commercial PCR chip shall need more efforts.

Currently, one of the temperature setting methods and structural designs for the PCR reactions is to place a test tube containing a mixture solution and DNA specimens into a sealed casing and then apply a heating device to heat the bottom portion of the test tube to the denaturation temperature so as to produce a temperature gradient thereof for further inducing a convection flow thereinside. Thereby, the PCR reaction can be maintained in a looping manner as the convection persists. In particular, the method and the apparatus for controlling temperature of the PCR are featured in simply structuring, low cost, requiring less time for changing temperatures, and being suitable to a single heat source environment.

Furthermore, a special reaction test tube furnished to a DNA amplification reaction includes mainly a plastic capillary tube wrapped with a metallic ring at the bottom. While this tube is arranged on a heating block with the metal ring contacting the block, the heat would be transferred to the liquid within the tube, such that the temperature of the liquid can be controlled around 95° C. In particular, the upper cap of the capillary tube is removable and thus can be applied by another temperature control at about 50° C., such that a temperature gradient between the bottom and the head of the tube can be controlled. Thereby, the PCR reagent inside the tube would be amplified time after time by the convective temperature cycling. Such a concept of heating the PCR reagent within the test tube which has a conductive ring under a single heat source is the topic of this current disclosure concerns.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure is to provide a portable real-time heating and detection device that can provide convenient portability to directly and promptly process an in-need PCR testing. The real-time detection results can be fed back to the touch panel interface so that the user can directly read the detection data in a real-time manner.

In one embodiment of the present disclosure, the portable real-time heating and detection device includes a body, a cover and a detection unit. The body further has an opening and a base. The cover further has a control unit and a fix unit, in which the fix unit is located above the opening of the body. The detection unit located on the base inside the body further has a thermostat, an optical exciter, an optical detector and a circuit board. The thermostat located at a side of the detection unit close to the opening further has at least one thermostat zone. The optical exciter is located between the thermostat and the base. The optical detector is located between the thermostat and the opening. The circuit board is electrically coupled respectively with the control unit, the thermostat, the heat-dissipation fan, the optical exciter and the optical detector. The control unit sends a temperature control command, a heat dissipation command, a stimulation command and a detection command through the circuit board, respectively, to the thermostat for performing corresponding temperature regulation upon the at least one thermostat zone, to the heat-dissipation fan for performing corresponding heat dissipation regulation upon the at least one thermostat zone, to the optical exciter for performing corresponding stimulation radiation upon the at least one thermostat zone, and to the optical detector for performing corresponding real-time stimulation light source detection upon the at least one thermostat zone. The optical detector sends a detected detection signal to the control unit via the circuit board so as to display a corresponding detection result in a real-time manner.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Refer now toFIG. 1toFIG. 3, in whichFIG. 1is a perspective view of an embodiment of the portable real-time heating and detection device in this disclosure,FIG. 2is another view ofFIG. 1with the cover opened, andFIG. 3demonstrates schematically a detection unit of the embodiment ofFIG. 1. The portable real-time heating and detection device10includes a body100, a cover110and a detection unit120. The body100further has an opening102and a base104. The cover110includes a control unit112and a fix unit114. The fix unit114is located over the opening102of the body100. In this embodiment, one end of the cover110is fixed above the opening102of the body100in a pivotal manner, so that the cover110can be pivoted to close or open the opening102of the body100. In this disclosure, the control unit112can be a touch panel interface or a mechanical push button interface, and the fix unit114can be a plastic with a low thermal conductivity coefficient such as Bakelite® brand plastic. The detection unit120located on the base104inside the body100includes a thermostat122, an optical exciter124, an optical detector126and a circuit board128. The thermostat122is disposed at a side thereof close to the opening102and further has at least one thermostat zone123. In this disclosure, the thermostat122capable of heating and cooling can be a heating pad. The optical exciter124disposed between the thermostat122and the base104can have an LED as the light source thereof. The optical detector126located between the thermostat122and the opening102can be a photodiode, a charge coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS). The circuit board128is electrically coupled respectively with the control unit112, the thermostat122, the optical exciter124and the optical detector126.

In this disclosure, the control unit112can send a temperature control command, a heat dissipation command, a stimulation command and a detection command through the circuit board128, respectively, to the thermostat122for performing corresponding temperature regulation upon the thermostat zones123, to the heat-dissipation fan130for performing corresponding heat dissipation regulation upon the thermostat zones123, to the optical exciter124for performing corresponding stimulation radiation upon the thermostat zones123, and to the optical detector126for performing corresponding real-time stimulation light source detection upon the thermostat zones123. The optical detector126sends a detected detection signal to the control unit112via the circuit board128so as to display a detection result in a real-time manner.

In this embodiment, the portable real-time heating and detection device10further includes a heat-dissipation fan130for performing heat dissipation upon the detection unit120. In addition, elements for the body100, the cover110and the detection unit120can be arranged in respective symmetric circling manners. Also, empty space shall be left in the symmetric centers of elements of the detection unit120and in the spacing between the elements of the detection unit120and the internal wall of the body. The base104also has a central hole for ventilation input from the heat-dissipation fan130located at one side of the base104and for flow circulation around the detection unit120so as to help to stabilize the overall detection temperature. The cover110can integrate the control unit112having the touch panel interface so as to allow the user to perform direct control for real-time reading the detection data.

Refer now toFIG. 4andFIG. 5, in whichFIG. 4is a view of an application ofFIG. 2, in which a plurality of detection tubes is loaded andFIG. 5is a view of an application ofFIG. 3where a plurality of detection tubes is loaded. The portable real-time heating and detection device10further includes at least one detection tube140located above each of the thermostat zones123of the thermostat122for accommodating an object to be tested. The thermostat122can perform the temperature regulation upon each of the objects to be tested inside respective detection tubes140so as to generate corresponding heat convection inside the detection tubes140. The optical exciter124can perform the stimulation radiation upon the objects to be tested. The optical detector126can detect the stimulation light sources of the stimulated objects to be tested and generate corresponding detection signals accordingly. When the fix unit114of the cover110is at a position to close the opening102of the body100, the fix unit114would apply depression forcing upon each of the tube caps142of the corresponding detection tubes140so as to fix the tube caps142and thereby to serve an internal thermal conservation purpose for the portable real-time heating and detection device10.

In summary, contrary to the conventional thermocycler, the portable real-time heating and detection device of this disclosure applies an adjustable temperature control to locally heat the detection tubes. By introducing the detection unit of this disclosure, a stable temperature gradient can be formed to each the object to be tested inside the detection tube. While in performing a PCR testing, the temperature regulation contributes a high temperature at the bottom of the detection tube for denaturation reaction. The temperature inside the detection tube would decrease gradually along an upward path there inside, and such a decrease in temperature (the temperature gradient) inside the detection tube would induce internal heat convection. The inside-tube heat convection flow would penetrate back and forth three different temperature zone piled inside the detection tube; i.e. denaturation at 95° C., extension at 72° C. and annealing at 45-65° C. Namely, if a DNA extension reagent is dissolved inside the detection tube where natural heat convection occurs, then the PCR reaction would be automatically completed after a substantial time of stay in the detection tube. Hence, the temperature control model of the portable real-time heating and detection device provided by this disclosure would be much simpler. Further, benefits from portability provided by the aforesaid portable real-time heating and detection device can contribute directly to the detection speed of an in-need PCR testing. By providing the detection device of this disclosure, real-time detection results would be able to be fed back to the touch panel interface anytime and anywhere for the user to directly access the detection data in a real-time manner.