What is PCR, so famous since the pandemic started?

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Since we are with the pandemic, the "PCR test" is a term that appears every single day in all the media and I am afraid that many people do not know what it is about.

PCR stands for Polymerase Chain Reaction and has many uses, in addition to telling us whether or not we are infected with coronaviruses, including stopping the bad guys using their DNA.

As you all know, cells reproduce by division, that is, splitting into two exactly the same cells, for this they need to make a copy of all the genetic material that will take, say, the other half.

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Polymerase is an enzyme, which works as a catalyst or accelerator of biochemical reactions, necessary to replicate or copy the blocks that make up the DNA necessary for cell division.

Taking advantage of this property of polymerase, the scientist Kary Mullis developed in 1986 a technique that serves to generate multiple copies of a small fragment of DNA and which he called PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction).

As you may have deduced, this technique is very useful for detecting viruses or bacteria, as well as for identifying genetic fingerprints or diagnosing some congenital diseases.

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Applied to the coronavirus that has made it famous, PCR manages to make lots of copies of the DNA obtained from patients in order to detect the COVID-19 virus, or its antibodies, if they have suffered and overcome the disease.

In the same way, the PCR test will allow to prove the authorship of a crime by analyzing the DNA traces left by the offender, paternity tests or any other test that needs to analyze DNA or RNA.

By the way, here below I leave you a video of the DNA replication which is amazing.

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