Removing Bottlenecks to Analytical Speed

INCOM manufactures life science products that bring more speed and reliability to automated analytical techniques. Our fiberoptic components offer optical isolation—a key feature that enables OEMs to increase the sensitivity of instruments and reduce sample sizes to picoliter quantities.

Fiberoptic Microwell Arrays—The Precision of a 444,000-Fiber Interrogation

By combining fiberoptic and microtiter plate technology, INCOM delivers a new dimension of speed and accuracy to bioplates and microfluidic devices. INCOM mates fiberoptic bottom plates to standard 96-, 384-, and 1536-well microtiter plates or a polymer-coating based on scientists' specifications for well diameters, depths, and well-to-well spacings. Each well can be interrogated by up to 444,000 optical fibers to provide exceptional resolution.

A second technology—etched microwell arrays—provides over 400,000 individual “test tubes” or wells on a standard size microscope slide. Each of the 400,000 wells can support a reaction and can be read using sensors.

Researchers use microwell arrays to gather more data reliably from fluorescence- and luminescence-based assays. The microwell arrays support sensitive biological analyses and offer economic advantages over conventional arrays.

FiberOptical Microfluidic Devices Enable Digital Flow Cytometry

The flexible design of INCOM’s microfluidic devices enables researchers to optimize experimental design using adaptable inlet and outlet ports, flow channels, mixing, and analysis zones. All areas of the device, specifically the analysis zones, are optically interrogated by thousands of minute optical fibers, enabling real-time monitoring of fluorescence- and luminescence-based reactions.

The analysis zone of INCOM’s microfluidic devices incorporate the same fiberoptic performance features as all of INCOM’s faceplate-based products. They promote reliable analyses through enhanced sensitivity, excellent spatial resolution, and no crosstalk.

Microcapillary Array Plates Provide Fast Reagent Introduction and Removal

The applications for microcapillary array plates include chemical analysis, biological weapons sensing, radioactivity sensing, photoreactive analysis, precision filtration, biological and genetic testing, and industrial sensing. Custom-designed to each application with unlimited thickness-to-diameter ratios, microcapillary array plates are emerging as an innovative tool not only for their crosstalk elimination but also for their mechanical properties.

Microcapillary array plates are comprised of hundreds of millions of uniform-diameter hollow flow-through capillaries for massively parallel testing. A key feature is the ability to quickly introduce and remove samples and minute quantities of reagents based on the forces of capillary action. These chemically-resistant, medical grade, borosilicate glass microtubes trap and channel elements of interest, helping to acheive the highest levels of analysis sensitivity.