On-Instrument Slide Temperature Measurement

Ventana Medical Systems, a Roche Company, develops automated tissue staining instruments to diagnose a variety of disease states, using an array of technologies (Special Stains, H&E, In-Situ Hybridization, Immuno-Histo Chemistry, …). Tissue staining requires precise temperature and fluid controls to produce accurate staining results.

Glass slides with tissue samples sit on plated heater caps with a puddle of fluid sitting on the top. Resistive heating in the plated cap is used to heat the slide and puddle to specific temperatures and keep the temperature constant for various amounts of time.

To produce the best results it is important to have accurate temperature control over the whole surface of the glass slide. Currently, there aren’t many accurate measurement techniques for taking multiple measurements over a surface.

The request is to design a sensor or combination of sensors to accurately read the surface of a glass slide sitting on a Benchmark ULTRA heater with fluid resting on the top. For safety purposes, examined temperatures should not exceed 100 C.

-The design shall be compact enough that it can be used inside our instruments. Dimensions and photos can be provided upon request.
-Testing shall show accurate surface temperature readings of +/- 1 C over a range of 40-100C measured against a controlled surface temperature surface.
-System shall log temperature and other relevant data.
-System shall work as intended with the fluid puddle sitting on top
-Multiple points of measurement across the surface, exact number of locations is up for discussion.
-System shall be generally durable; low risk of breaking when installing or moving between instruments.