Patent ID: 8211693

Claim:
A device for separating and/or detecting a plurality of molecular targets in solution in a complex mixture, said device comprising: a. a set of magnetic particles on which a set of molecular targets having different types and representative of a transcriptome or a proteome to be analyzed is immobilized; and b. a set of probes, wherein each probe comprises a nucleic acid sequence and is specific one type of molecular target of the set of molecular targets to form a stoichiometric mixture, wherein the set of probes is in solution in a mixture, and each probe has a molecular mass which is predetermined and which is different from the molecular masses of the other probes so that each type of probe is identifiable in a non-equivocal manner by its molecular mass, the molecular masses of the probes being predetermined and differentiated by combining three criteria of empirical formula, size and labeling with heavy atoms of the nucleic acid sequences of the probes.