PCR-Why was it an important discovery?

[freebird1104]

Does anyone know why PCR was an important discovery?

[Poison]

It is obviously seen that you know nothing about PCR. Am I wrong?

[MrMistery]

Poison is probably right.
PCR is highly efficient, cheap(compared to other methods like DNA cloning) and fast

[canalon]

to be a little more specific than Andrew, aka MrMistery, PCR was a way to obtain important quantity of clean and pure DNA.So making it much easier to manipulate genes and small stretches of DNA.
AFAIK 10 years ago, when I first started to work in a lab, PCR was still far from being cheap, but still much less expensive and/ or time consuming than any other way to purify DNA. And the thermocycler were crude and slow compare to what we now have!

HTH

Patrick <old man>

[MrMistery]

PCR is not cheap nowdays, compared to my mother makes. But it is the cheapest way to get the job done

[chemistry_freako]

Yea- it's relatively fast - did one just last week

[b_d_41501]

PCR is probably the greatest forensic discovery of all time. In a crime lab it allows you to take a drop of blood (which contains not as much genetic material as people may think) and duplicate what genetic material is in it so that millions of tests can be conducted. Forensics wouldn't be 3/4 the way to where it is today without PCR.