Patent ID: 6934408

Claim:
A method for imaging a plurality of encoded beads entrained in a flow of fluid to identify a compound attached to each encoded bead, corresponding reporters attached to each bead identifying a unique bead signature, thereby identifying the attached compound, said method comprising the steps of: (a) providing an imaging system for imaging encoded beads contained within the flow of fluid, said imaging system including at least one light source for illuminating an encoded bead within the flow of fluid passing through the imaging system; (b) focussing light from the encoded bead along a collection path that is in a direction not aligned with the flow of fluid; (c) dispersing the light that is traveling along the collection path into a plurality of light beams, as a function of a plurality of different discriminable characteristics of the light, said plurality of different discriminable characteristics being indicative of an identity of each reporter that may be attached to the encoded bead; (d) focussing each of the light beams to produce a respective image corresponding to that light beam; (e) detecting respective images thus produced; (f) generating a plurality of signals based on the respective images, each signal identifying those reporters present on each encoded bead; (g) analyzing each respective image to determine the identity of each reporter present on each encoded bead, thereby identifying the compound attached to that bead; and (h) repeating steps (a)-(g) for successive encoded beads in the flow of fluid.