Until now, the "gold standard" method for genetic-based research, PCR, has been too costly to use in the large-scale experiments that are necessary to identify the genetic causes of disease and the drugs to cure them.

Researchers have relied on other technologies, such as DNA arrays, which have been useful for some genomic research. However, compared to PCR, DNA arrays are expensive, limited in sensitivity, difficult and slow to use, provide ambiguous data, and are inflexible in experiment design. Many researchers use microarray hybridization to measure gene expression. They would prefer real-time PCR because of its high sensitivity and precision, but costs have made PCR prohibitive except as a validation tool. In fact, qPCR is often used as a validation tool to back-up microarray data.

BioTrove's OpenArray™ Real-Time qPCR system reverses this trend by providing the precision and sensitivity of qPCR at the low cost and high throughput of microarrays.

Researchers performing PCR can now use OpenArray™ plates, which have 3072 through-holes instead of the 384 or 96 wells in a standard microtiter plate. Not only do OpenArray™ plates hold more individual assays, but each assay consists of only 33 nanoliters of reagents. This includes low volumes of RNA or cDNA, PCR Master Mix, and fluorescent dye. Reagents are loaded in minutes using simple devices.