The development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been a major breakthrough in the scientific world. Over time, the technique has evolved beyond the confines of its simple initial design ...

A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test detects genetic material from a pathogen or abnormal cell sample. Ways of collecting samples include a nasal swab, a saliva swab, or taking a sample of blood.

When the first thermal cyclers for the polymerase chain reaction came out in the 1980s, they were as expensive as a market driven by grant money could make them. Things haven’t got much better ...

Since the emergence of COVID-19 in late 2019, the gold standard in testing for the disease has been a nuclear-derived technique: real-time reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction, or real-time ...