The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has become the sine qua non of many molecular biology laboratories. It basically uses enzymes to mass replicate a portion of a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) strand for easier analysis, such as in searching for genes of interest. Like the nuclear chain reaction, PCR is an exponential process that continues as long as the raw materials for sustaining the reaction are available. In contrast to DNA replication in the natural world, PCR can only replicate fairly small pieces of DNA, with an upper ceiling of about 2-3 kilo base pairs (kb). A modern PCR requires six basic components to work: the DNA segment to be copied, primers to delimit the segment, Taq polymerase to do the copying, DNA nucleotides as feedstock, a chemical buffer environment, and a machine called the thermal cycler.

Main Research: Dr. Meilina Ong Abdullah