Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction : Current Trends and Future Opportunities - Biologics Market Research

Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction : Current Trends and Future Opportunities
Published Date: October 2006
Published By: Biocompare
Page Count: 75
Order Code: R711-27
Price: $2500 Online Download
$6250 Global Site License
The 2006 Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Report is composed of a market overview and an introduction to the 2006 Real-time PCR Survey, which contains questions about PCR instruments, reagents, and related applications that researchers are using. The report also includes a discussion of the survey results and conclusions and recommendations drawn from both a market analysis of real-time PCR and the survey data. The academic assessment section presents an interview with an expert in nucleic acid research, including PCR, DNA sequencing, and oligonucleotide synthesis, that rounds out this comprehensive report.
Biocompare spoke with Kevin Knudtson, Ph.D., director of the DNA Facility at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, to discuss his perspective on services related to nucleic acid analysis, including real-time PCR. As a core facility resource, he explained, ?we maintain instrumentation?our responsibility is to help users understand what they?re doing.? He notes that his facility serves as a source of information and consistency, both for users of the facility and for those who own their own real-time thermal cyclers. ?We?re involved with helping them [investigators] design experiments, help them think about controls and the primer design,? issues that instrument and reagent companies just aren?t equipped to handle. When asked about what to consider before purchasing a thermal cycler, he suggests a trial run with the instrument before handing over the money. ?Getting reliable results really depends on assay design,? he states, although the proper controls, good primers, and a good quality template are also critical. Dr. Knudtson also commented on his facility?s use of Applied Biosystems? (ABI?s) instruments. Recent developments in faster-heating blocks, the versatility and flexability of their instruments, and the fact that his facility has been using the same technology for years are reasons they have stuck with ABI. Providers of real-time chemistries also validate their reagents (and also, incidentally, market to customers) on how their products run on ABI instruments, allowing the facility to meet the needs of the numerous researchers who use their services. When queried about the growth of real-time PCR, he sees further adoption of this technology in molecular diagnostics and nucleic acid analyses in general, as well as in biological diversity and contamination, SNP detection, and as a validation technology for microarray data. ?More investigators are finding real-time PCR techniques to be relatively easy - and abandoning more tedious - and often more expensive - methods.?
The market overview supports the opinions of Dr. Knudtson as the real-time PCR market has continued to grow, notably in clinical diagnostics. As the gold standard for assessing gene expression, its growth has been fueled by its adoption in genomics-based research. With DNA synthesizers, basic thermal cyclers, and liquid-handling instrumentation combined, the real-time thermal cycler market brought in nearly $440 million in 20037, and is expected to top $850 million by 2012. Efforts to identify and characterize biomarkers and fill drug pipelines are primary market drivers, and advances in clinical genomics fuels additional interest in this technology.
Survey Introduction
The 2006 Real-time PCR Survey is designed to provide vendors of real-time PCR instruments and reagents with a better understanding of how their products are used in the research environment and how their company specifically rates among survey participants. Data were gathered from questions regarding which applications researchers are currently using real-time PCR for, what types of real-time assays are performed, whether uracil-N-glycosylase (UNG) treatment is used, preferred reaction volumes and numbers of reactions performed per run and per month, the average cost of consumables per PCR well, how much time is needed per run, the type of template used, whether RNA quality is assessed prior to PCR, the template source material, the specific brands of kits and master mixes used (both SYBR and non-SYBR), the manufacturer of the real-time instrument used and the specific instrument model used, how long ago the instrument was purchased, how satisfied researchers are with the primary features of their instrument, purchasing plans for new equipment and what brands and models are likely to be purchased, important features to consider when shopping for a thermal cycler for real-time PCR, what types of reagents are used and why (if they are sold by a company other than the instrument manufacturer), whether high-throughput real-time PCR is performed, whether real-time multiplex PCR is performed, familiarity with high-resolution melting (HRM) PCR, whether fast-cycling reactions are performed, and the types of webinars or seminars that would be of interest.