The utility of droplet digital PCR in gene quantification/copy number determination is becoming increasingly prevalent in industry. Its immediate benefits over traditional absolute quantitative PCR methods is hard to deny as it obviates the need to either generate rigorous standard curves or measure PCR efficiency of every gene pair to be measured. ddPCR delivers the same sensitivity as with conventional approaches with the added benefit of smaller errors. ddPCR relies on the Poisson algorithm and is essentially an end point measurement where the sample to be measured is randomly distributed into discrete partitions containing either none, one or more nucleic acid template copies. These individual partitions are then thermally cycled as in conventional PCR to their end point and then read to determine the fraction of partitions that are positive for the amplification. Continue reading →