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Nature 422, 28-29 (6 March 2003) | doi:10.1038/422028a

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Microfluidics: DNA amplification moves on

Andrew J. deMello

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The polymerase chain reaction is widely used to amplify samples of DNA for genetic analysis, and fast, high throughput is the ideal. Microscale, chip-based devices are now proving themselves in this arena.

The advent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has hugely accelerated the progress of studies on the genetic structure of a diversity of organisms. PCR is an enzyme-catalysed reaction that allows any nucleic acid sequence to be generated in vitro, and in abundance —hence the term 'DNA amplification'.