BACKGROUND

An “assay run” is an investigative or analytic event used in, for example, laboratory medicine, pharmacology, analytical chemistry, environmental biology, or molecular biology, for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or the functional activity of a sample. The sample may be a drug, a genomic sample, a proteomic sample, a biochemical substance, a cell in an organism, an organic sample, or other inorganic and organic chemical samples. An assay run may measure an intensive property of the sample and express it in the relevant measurement unit such as, for example, molarity, density, functional activity in enzyme international units, degree of some effect in comparison to a standard, among other measurable characteristics. An assay may involve reacting a sample with a number of reagents, and may be classified as an instance of an assay procedure conforming to an assay protocol. An assay protocol may involve a set of reagent and/or sample fluids being dispensed in specific amounts to a number of assay reaction sites such as wells within an assay plate. Further, an assay protocol may include additional processing such as mixing, separation, heating or cooling, incubation, and eventually at least one read-out. The reproducibility and run-to-run comparability of an assay depends on the reproduction of its protocol.

