Finding a market So what to do with a cheap PCR machine?
PCR is a very sensitive technology, able to detect small quantities of DNA.
But, Bruins says, it won't push it up anywhere close to that of competing real-time PCR machines, such as the GeneXpert used in countries like South Africa to test for tuberculosis.
They decided to look at high-end technologies that they would be able to simplify, finally honing in on something called polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
A regular PCR machine is expensive, and needs to be operated in a laboratory.
Bruins and his colleagues also approached academic medical researchers, who agreed that malaria detection was a good use for their PCR machine.
But quantitative PCR is time-consuming; and in viral diseases time is often of the essence.
Using a technique known as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the team "amplified" the small remaining amount of DNA in the bone into something it could analyse.
One example is the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a standard technique which employs enzymes to churn out millions of copies of a DNA sequence and involves cycles of gentle heating and cooling.
