There is presently a great deal of interest in defecting specific genetic mutations or variants that could provide information about an individual's predisposition to a wide variety of diseases, predict an individual's sensitivity to specific chemicals or drugs, or be used as prognostic indicators for the treatment of patients with diseases such as cancer. Despite the importance of monitoring such genetic variants, present research laboratory techniques are not suitable for routine clinical use, and there is a great need for new, automated, high-throughput diagnostic approaches We will address this problem by developing automated instrumentation for the quantitative detection of speclfic DNA products generated from DNA or RNA targets by polymerase chain reaction techniques. This computer-controlled Instrumentation will be capable of delivering samples and reagents to standard 96-well microplates, maintaining appropriate incubation temperatures for specific hybridization reactions, and performing washing and detection procedures. The instrument will be able to quickly and efficiently process many DNA samples, and the final planned technology will be able to simultaneously screen multiple genes from a single DNA sample.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:Combining established PCR techniques with fully automated microplate-based detection will provide a powerful new system for the determination of many important genetic markers, and will allow rapid, efficient processing of large numbers of DNA samples. This instrumentation wilT be suitable for measuring a large number of variants in important genes, and will facilitate the development of new DNA probe-based assays suitable for the microplate format.National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
