DNA technique heralds future advances in disease detection

Scientists in Shanghai have come up with a way to obtain accurate test results from microscopic DNA samples, paving the way for breakthroughs in the detection of cancer and venereal disease.

Their technique, called LcnPCR, developed during more than 10 years of research at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, a branch of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It has been included in Methods in Molecular Biology, a textbook "for everybody in the molecular biology field around the world", said Wang Xuecai, deputy director of the institute.