What is Selective
    Thermal Control
    Technology?

The Thermal Control Unit (TCU)

Selective Thermal Control Technology is the engineering breakthrough that has enabled the design of the unique miniature Thermal Control Unit (TCU), which is the “inner core” of the Rapid Thaw System (RTS) and other ACESystems products. The technology is based on ACESystems’ advanced understanding of complex heat transfer and electronics. The TCU (shown to the left) is a tiny instrumented and thermally controlled device that can be fitted around each individual well in a multi-welled microplate (shown below in cut-away view, with one TCU in place). The TCU rapidly thaws safely and gently, in a matter of minutes, the contents of an individually selected well, without affecting the other frozen wells, as proved scientifically with experimental data. This not only removes the thawing bottleneck and saves valuable laboratory time, but also preserves precious compounds by thawing only those wells selected for sampling.

As suggested in the cut-away microplate, each standard (deep circular) well of a 96-well plate is fitted with a TCU. The TCUs electronically maintain a constant temperature in any of the 96 wells selected; other non-selected wells are isolated and remain safely frozen. Subsequently, an individual TCU, or several, can then be electronically activated to become a heat source that thaws the selected well(s). More scientific details of the ACESystems TCU system can be found in the U.S. Patents (“Thawing Station” # 6,106,784, and “Thermal Cycler” # 6,558,947).