METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING SIGNAL FOR INTRODUCTION OF CHEMICAL REACTIVE COMPONENT INTO CHEMICAL ANALYSIS APPARATUS

摘要

A system for chemically analyzing antigens or antibodies by initiating an antigen-antibody reaction in a reaction zone and measuring the light scattered by a precipitate produced by the reaction to determine the antigen or antibody concentration. In order to signal the start of the reaction, a fluorescent tagging substance is included with at least the last antigen or antibody reaction component introduced into the reaction zone. The fluorescent tagging substance does not enter into the antigen- antibody reaction and is selected to emit light in a bandwidth spectrally separated from the light scattered by the precipitate. The reaction zone is monitored for the presence of the tagging substance, and when the substance is detected a trigger signal is generated to signal the start of the reaction. By including a tagging substance with each component of the reaction and by monitoring the reaction zone for the presence of each tagging substance, a trigger signal is generated only if each reaction component is present.