What is Selective Thermal
Control Technology?

The Problem... The Compound-Thawing Bottleneck

Much of the work conducted in biotech and pharmaceutical laboratories today focuses on chemical and biological compounds (liquid solutions) that are sampled, read and processed in multi-welled sample trays called microplates (pictured here).  Large and costly libraries of microplates are typically stored in special freezers and then removed by hand or automatically in a high throughput screening process (HTS) that uses computer-controlled robots and readers, etc.  However, before any analysis of the compounds in the wells can take place, the microplates and their entire contents are typically thawed into their original liquid state, which is time-consuming, inefficient and wasteful.  Furthermore, with current procedures, if compound samples are needed from only one or two wells (as is frequently the case), then the whole plate must first be thawed, and the remaining, non-sampled compounds will degrade upon refreezing (or upon several such re-freezings).  In terms of laboratory efficiency, this thawing requirement presents itself as a huge bottleneck... until now.

Our patented miniature Thermal Control Unit (TCU) solves  the problem by rapidly thawing individually selected wells, in a matter of minutes rather than hours, without affecting the other frozen wells in the microplate.  This patented Rapid Thaw System (RTS) is described here in more scientific detail.

Thawing Bottleneck → Bench-Top Thawing →  ACESystems TCU Solution