Patent ID: 7998414

Claim:
A functional assay detection system for membrane bound proteins, comprising: a biological array including a porous substrate having a plurality of membranes adhered thereto, the porous substrate having a first side and a second side; a fluorescent labeling reagent configured to couple to the membrane bound proteins, the fluorescent labeling reagent comprising a fluorophore having an emission lifetime that is in the range of microseconds; a pulsed light assembly configured to excite the fluorescent labeling reagent; a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera comprising: a digital delay generator (DDG), an optical shutter, and at least one sensor array of electrons wells; and a readout device, wherein the CCD is configured to allow separate control of the optical shutter and electron transfer from the sensor array so that a multitude of trigger pulses from the pulsed light assembly repeatedly trigger the opening and closing of the optical shutter to allow photons from the excited fluorescent labelling reagent to cause the accumulation of electrons in the sensor array wells over the course of many pulses of the pulsed light assembly while blocking the autofluorescence photons so that many pulses of fluorescent light can be integrated in each sensor well before subsequently transferring the electrons captured in the sensor array to a readout device for signal processing.