Breaking Leukemia's Limits of Detection with Droplet Digital™ PCR

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Bio-Rad Laboratories

"For more info, visit http://www.bio-rad.com/droplet Prof. Alec Morley, a pioneer in digital PCR, describes his use of droplet digital PCR (ddPCR™) technology to advance the diagnosis and treatment of leukemia. Morley and his colleagues at Flinders University and Medical Center in Adelaide, South Australia previously developed a digital PCR method for the early detection of residual acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using a genetic marker instead of traditional microscopy of bone marrow cells, enabling more accurate prediction of relapse risk for ALL patients following chemotherapy. Monoquant, a company founded by Morley to commercialize the research in his lab, has now chosen Bio-Rad's ddPCR system to develop a new clinical test for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). The unparalleled sensitivity of ddPCR technology promises great improvement over conventional qPCR tests and also eliminates the variability in amplification efficiency that results from using patient-specific PCR primers, removing a potential roadblock to FDA approval. The QX200™ Droplet Digital PCR system, Bio-Rad's second-generation digital PCR system, provides absolute quantification of target DNA or RNA molecules using EvaGreen or TaqMan hydrolysis probes, yielding unmatched sensitivity and precision for a wide variety of applications."