Relevance: Prelims: Science and technology
Why in news?
- The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said designated labs will use the conventional real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to test for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
About:
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test is conducted on swab collected from the back of the throat, a liquid sample from the lower respiratory tract, or a simple saliva sample. Such tests are commonly used in Influenza A, Influenza B and H1N1 virus detection.
- The PCR test uses a technique that creates copies of a segment of DNA.
- ‘Polymerase’ refers to the enzymes that make the copies of DNA.
- The ‘chain reaction’ is how the DNA fragments are copied, exponentially — one is copied into two, the two are copied into four, and so on.
- Kary Mullis, the American biochemist who invented the PCR technique, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993.
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