BACKGROUND Over the past 2 decades there have been substantial improvements in the methods used to quantify viral nucleic acid in body fluids and in our understanding of how to use viral load measurements in the diagnosis and management of patients with a number of viral infections. These methods are now integrated into a wide range of diagnostic and treatment guidelines and commonly deployed i...

BACKGROUND Development of a practical gene point-of-care testing device (g-POCT device) requires innovative detection methods for demonstrating the results of the gene amplification reaction without the use of expensive equipment. We have studied a new method for the sequence-specific visual detection of minute amounts of nucleic acids using precipitation reaction by addition of cationic polyme...

Mycobacteria are a group of acid-fast, aerobic, slow-growing organisms whose genus includes more than 90 different species. The causative agents of tuberculosis (TB), which is currently considered a global emergency, with more than 2 million people dying every year and 8 million new cases, belong to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTB). Moreover, although of lesser public health importa...

Human immunodeficiency virus is a blood borne and being routinely screened in the banks since 1983. The sensitivity specificity of HIV tests have improved dramatically over years, but even then, false positive results do occur, which need confirmatory testing. A young male who arrived at Armed Forces Institute Transfusion (AFIT), Rawalpindi, for donation, was repeatedly “positive” on serologica...

Archival, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue is an invaluable resource for molecular genetic studies but the extraction of high quality nucleic acid may be problematic. We have optimised DNA extraction by comparing 10 protocols, including a commercially available kit and a novel method that utilises a thermal cycler. The thermal cycler and Chelex-100 extraction method yielded DNA capable ...

AIM Processing of the samples in molecular diagnostics is complex and labor-intensive. An integrated and automated platform for sample preparation and nucleic acid-based detection can significantly relieve this burden for the users. RESULTS We present a prototype of a versatile and integrated platform for the detection of pathogens in various liquid media. We describe a proof-of-concept for t...