PCR: Celebrating 30 Years

Highlights from a webinar held by The Scientist to celebrate 30 years of PCR: the technique's invention, quantitative real-time PCR, and digital PCR.


In the 30 years since Kary Mullis imagined PCR while cruising a California highway, the technology has impacted just about every area of life science research. No longer are researchers required to laboriously clone, identify, and isolate pieces of DNA before studying them—they can simply amplify them instead, using paired oligonucleotides and a hardy polymerase to pluck the needle from the metaphorical haystack. Shattered, too, are researchers’ assumptions regarding how much DNA is enough for analysis. When concentration doubles every PCR cycle, even one copy of DNA is sufficient.  

Read more:
PCR: Past, Present, & Future 

Source: The Scientist
Image credits: Greg Dale/ Getty Images
______________________________________________________________

Quality and Education Services 

for Medical Laboratories and POCT

 

______________________________________________________________

Follow Art and Science of Laboratory Medicine on

______________________________________________________________