Portable Real-Time PCR

About

Invention Current commercial real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) instruments are usually based on optical detection methods and are therefore very bulky and expensive. The breakthrough of this invention is the use of an electrochemistry-based method to perform quantitative real-time PCR instead of fluorescence-based optical techniques. It addresses both the issues of system volume and cost, and would also provide possibility for multiplex real-time PCR, which is a difficult process to do in an optics-based counterpart. The most prominent feature of this invention is the cycle-by-cycle accumulation of electroactive reporters on the electrode surface that would lead to the signal increase, which could be used to quantify the amount of PCR amplicons produced at a specific thermal cycle.   Market Opportunity This electrochemical approach utilizes simple and miniaturizable instrumentation compared to the bulky and sophisticated optics required in the fluorescence-based schemes. Market of this new technology will cover scientific research, clinical diagnostics, environmental monitoring, food testing and biodefense applications.   Collaboration Opportunities • Technology licensing: The current technology should be sufficient to develop the commercial product of the first generation. • Collaborative research and development: Progress has been made to improve the technology in various aspects. Research work on the invention is on-going.   Key Benefits Simple instrumentation and cost effective Real-time, accurate, portable High throughput Wide dynamic range of quantification