Patent ID: 7885770

Claim:
A method of monitoring capillary gel array performance between two or more uses of the capillary gel array on an instrument, the method of monitoring comprising: performing a use of the capillary gel array and performing a subsequent use of the capillary gel array, wherein a use of the capillary gel array is defined as including the capillary gel array performing a size based separation on an unknown sample in one or more capillaries, a size based separation on a second standard in those one or more capillaries and a size based separation on a first standard in one or more other different capillaries, results of the one or more unknown samples being compared with results from the one or more capillaries provided with the first standard and results of the one or more unknown samples being compared with results from the one or more capillaries provided with the second standard; determining variation in a characteristic of the results from the capillaries provided with the first standard between two or more uses of the capillary gel array; using variation of that characteristic outside a predetermined position to provide information on the capillary gel array, the information being that one or more of the capillaries of the array are providing reduced performance; determining the timing of the provision of a replacement capillary gel array using the information, the capillary gel array being replaced by the replacement capillary gel array; and replacing the capillary gel array on which the use and subsequent use were performed with the replacement capillary gel array according to the timing determined.