A Buoyancy-Driven Compact Thermocycler for Rapid PCR

The authors have designed a novel convective flow-based thermocycling system capable of performing high-speed DNA amplification via the polymerase chain reaction in a simplified and inexpensive format. Successful amplification of a 191 bp influenza-A target is demonstrated within 25 minutes using a 10 μL reaction volume with no modification to standard laboratory protocols. The system is simple to assemble and can be readily integrated with existing laboratory instrumentation for automated operation.