Method of processing liquid biological material

{
  "publication_number": "US9631223B2",
  "country": "US",
  "kind": "B2",
  "title": "Method of processing liquid biological material",
  "abstract": "A method of processing liquid biological material includes providing a liquid processing system. The liquid processing system includes a trunk, a first arm, a second arm, a driving mechanism, and physiochemical equipment. The first arm includes a first robot hand. The second arm includes a second robot hand. A process is performed on a cell suspension in which periphytic cultured cells are suspended as a liquid biological material. In the process, a culture vessel is held with the first robot hand in a state with an open top of the culture vessel facing upwards. The culture vessel has a culture face where the cultured cells are cultured on a base thereof. A cell scraper is held with the second robot hand. The cell scraper is provided with a blade to scrape the cultured cells from the culture face.",
  "claims": [
    "1. A method of processing liquid biological material, the method comprising: providing a liquid processing system comprising: a trunk provided turnable on an axis, set within a predetermined work space; a first arm provided to the trunk and having at least three degrees of freedom or higher degrees of freedom, the first arm including a first robot hand; a second arm provided to the trunk and having at least three degrees of freedom or higher degrees of freedom, the second arm including a second robot hand; a driving mechanism configured to drive each of the trunk, the first arm, and the second arm; and physiochemical equipment situated within the work space and within the range of movement of at least one of the first and the second arm; and performing a process on a cell suspension in which periphytic cultured cells are suspended as a liquid biological material including: holding a culture vessel with the first robot hand in a state with an open top of the culture vessel facing upwards, the culture vessel having a culture face where the cultured cells are cultured on a base thereof; holding a cell scraper with the second robot hand, the cell scraper being provided with a blade to scrape the cultured cells from the culture face; and using the first arm and second arm to: bring the blade into contact with the culture face at one place away from a middle of the culture face, such that a longitudinal direction of the blade faces in a direction intersecting a straight line connecting the middle of the culture face and the one place, move the blade over the culture face from the one place passing through the middle and to an other side, rotate the blade which has moved to the other side, with one point on an exponential line in the longitudinal direction of the blade and on the outer side of one or both ends of the blade in the longitudinal direction thereof as the axis of rotation, until an end of the blade which is at the farthest side from the one point of the both ends of the blade which is the axis of rotation comes to be positioned at the outer edge of the culture face, and in a state with the end of the blade at the farthest side from the one point following the outer edge of the culture face moving the blade relatively to the culture face in a state of the blade in contact with the culture face, wherein the first arm is operated cooperatively with the second arm such that while the blade is being moved over the culture face, the culture vessel is inclined so that the cell suspension in the culture vessel is collected at one part of the culture vessel, and so that the cell suspension including the cultured cells peeled off from the culture face is situated ahead of the direction of motion of the blade as to the culture vessel.",
    "2. A method of processing liquid biological material, the method comprising: providing a liquid processing system comprising: a trunk provided turnable on an axis, set within a predetermined work space; a first arm provided to the trunk and having at least three degrees of freedom or higher degrees of freedom, the first arm including a first robot hand; a second arm provided to the trunk and having at least three degrees of freedom or higher degrees of freedom, the second arm including a second robot hand; a driving mechanism configured to drive each of the trunk, the first arm, and the second arm; and physiochemical equipment situated within the work space and within the range of movement of at least one of the first and the second arm; and performing a process on a cell suspension in which periphytic cultured cells are suspended as a liquid biological material including: holding a culture vessel with the first robot hand in a state with an open top of the culture vessel facing upwards, the culture vessel having a culture face where the cultured cells are cultured on a base thereof; holding a cell scraper with the second robot hand, the cell scraper being provided with a blade to scrape the cultured cells from the culture face; and using the first arm and second arm to: bring the blade into contact with the culture face at one place away from a middle of the culture face, such that a longitudinal direction of the blade faces in a direction intersecting a straight line connecting the middle of the culture face and the one place, move the blade over the culture face from the one place passing through the middle and to an other side, pivot the blade, which has moved to the other side, about a point on a first longitudinal end of the blade until a second longitudinal end of the blade comes to be positioned at an outer edge of the culture face, and move the blade relative to the culture vessel such that the second longitudinal end follows the outer edge of the culture face in a state in which the blade is in contact with the culture face, wherein the first arm is operated cooperatively with the second arm such that while the blade is being moved over the culture face, the culture vessel is inclined so that the cell suspension in the culture vessel is collected at one part of the culture vessel, and so that the cell suspension including the cultured cells peeled off from the culture face is situated ahead of the direction of motion of the blade as to the culture vessel."
  ],
  "description_excerpt": "1. Field of the Invention\n\nThe present invention relates to a method of processing liquid biological material.\n\n2. Description of the Related Art\n\nAnalysis of materials of biological origin has been performed heretofore in the fields of biology and medicine. Materials of biological origin often are liquid materials, such as biological material like blood or urine, suspensions for cultured cells, and so forth. Such liquid materials are processed using equipment capable of accurately measuring liquids, such as micropipettors for example.\n\nThere have been developed as of recent systems including robots which operate analytical equipment and so forth, to handle for analysis and the like test specimens hazardous to humans. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-54690 describes an automatic cell cultivating apparatus including equipment necessary for culturing, such as incubators and centrifuges, and a robot to operate the equipment. The automatic cell cultivating apparatus according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-54690 allows a robot to perform cultivation in the place of humans.\n\nHowever, the automatic cell cultivating apparatus according to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-54690 is arranged such that the robot cooperatively works with special equipment designed specifically for the robot to be able to handle well. This creates a difficulty in reproducing the same equipment configuration and procedures as with analysis according to the related art performed by hand using this system.",
  "cpc": [
    "C12Q 1/24",
    "B25J 15/0033",
    "B25J 9/0087",
    "C12M 23/50",
    "C12Q 1/37",
    "G01N 33/53",
    "G01N 35/0099"
  ],
  "ipc": [
    "B25J 15/00",
    "B25J 9/00",
    "C12M 1/00",
    "C12Q 1/24",
    "C12Q 1/37",
    "G01N 33/53",
    "G01N 35/00"
  ],
  "assignees": [
    "Yaskawa Electric Corp"
  ],
  "inventors": [
    "Makoto Umeno",
    "Teruyasu ARAI"
  ],
  "filing_date": "2016-01-27",
  "publication_date": "2017-04-25",
  "grant_date": "2017-04-25",
  "priority_date": "2011-06-28",
  "application_number": "US-201615007211-A",
  "family_id": "47424159",
  "cited_by_count": 1,
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  ]
}