Recently we’ve had a project in our lab to test several hundred samples for a range of viruses – all Read More

Designing primers for your high resolution melting is easy enough. A quick run with some known genotypes …. and look for the melting curve differences among samples. Too simple. But what about the temperature-neutral SNP’s? The what? A number of SNP’s ( ~ 4% in the human genome) have no affect on the melting temperature […]

Originally published in May, 2014 ‘”we were interested to see if we could do it from hair . . .and we were the only ones around doing PCR” So you might have read the blog entry about the visit to see the first thermalcycler “Mr Cycle” at the Smithsonian. You haven’t? Sorry, another old blog […]

Another old blog article – this one written originally in July 2010 : As PCR primers become less expensive, is there less care being paid to them? Throw in a diluent,a quick vortex and dilute for PCR? I hope this doesn’t sound too familiar because even in these days of real-time qPCR and various probe […]

OK, confession time. I used to work some crazy hours in order to fit some library screening into a part time job while finishing my degree. No, that’s not the confession – more, when I put the PCR on I would sometimes look out the window and note the wind direction. Occasionally, very occasionally (*cough*) if the […]

You’ve done the hard work – you’ve got good quality RNA. You’ve seen ribosomal bands on a gel (or *cough* Fragment Analyzer). A good RQN/RIN (if that’s what you go by) and everything’s great. Now to get rid of the DNA Quick check (perform a PCR directly on appropriate amount of RNA) and often there’s […]