Patent ID: 8557600

Claim:
A process for conducting vacuum assisted immunoassays comprising the steps of: a. providing a vacuum manifold, a porous support placed on the vacuum manifold, the porous support has a device that is capable of fitting onto a vacuum manifold and wherein the device is selected from the group consisting of an edge and a mounting piece, one or more blotting membranes containing one or more biological entities to be assayed, the one or more blotting membranes being placed on the porous support, a flow distributor that is a plastic microporous hydrophilic membrane having has low protein binding characteristics to provide even liquid distribution over the one or more membranes supported on the porous support, the flow distributor being placed on top of the one or more blotting membranes and in contact with the one or more blotting membranes and one or more wells formed on a top surface of the flow distributor wherein each well has a separate flow distributor, b. removing any air bubbles from between the flow distributor and the one or more membranes, c. adding one or more reagents to the one or more wells and applying a vacuum to pull the reagents into the one or more membranes, d. adding one or more washing agents to the one or more we and applying a vacuum to pull the washing agents and any unbound reagents through the flow distributor, one or more membranes and porous support and into the vacuum manifold in order to conduct an immunoassay and e. detecting the one or more biological entities by applying a detection mechanism to the one or more wells and applying a vacuum to poll the detection mechanism through the flow distributor and into the one or more membranes.