Patent Document ID: 6017434
Application ID: 08438231
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. An integrated apparatus for concurrent separation and analysis of a plurality of biopolymer fragment samples, each sample comprising a plurality of fragments obtained from one or more biopolymers, the apparatus comprising: (a) means for loading the plurality of biopolymer fragment samples into an electrophoretic separation medium; (b) an electrophoresis module for substantially concurrent electrophoretic separation of each of the plurality of biopolymer fragment samples loaded into the electrophoretic separation medium, said electrophoresis module comprising (i) a substantially flat bottom plate; and (ii) a substantially flat top plate having a plurality of grooves on one side, the top plate being positioned in contact with the bottom plate so that the grooves form with the bottom plate a plurality of separated channels, the channels holding the electrophoretic medium to form electrophoretic migration lanes; (c) means for substantially simultaneously stimulating light emissions from fragments in a plurality of biopolymer fragment samples; and (d) means for substantially simultaneous resolution of said light emissions into spatial and spectral components and generation of output signals representative thereof, said means for substantially simultaneous resolutions being a transmission imaging spectrograph comprising (i) an optic assembly positioned to receive a substantial fraction of the plurality of light emissions for simultaneous spatial imaging along a first axis and spectral dispersion along a second axis, and (ii) a detector array for simultaneous spatial and spectral detection of the plurality of light emissions imaged along the first axis and dispersed along the second axis by the optic assembly, the detector producing output signals representative of the detected light; wherein the grooves in the top plate are spaced to converge toward one end of the plate.