Video
What is PCR?
ESR scientist Dr Brent Gilpin explains how polymerase chain reaction or PCR is able to identify specific bacteria.
Transcript
Dr Brent Gilpin PCR – polymerase chain reaction – is a way of amplifying up very small amounts of DNA very specifically. So we are able to, out of a background of millions of DNA sequences from thousands of different types of bacteria, use DNA primers to pull out just the DNA sequence from a specific organism or group of organisms.
Acknowledgements: TVNZ Television Archives
Rights: © Copyright. University of Waikato. All Rights Reserved.
Published: 12 September 2016
