The University of Health Sciences (UHS) is organising one-day technical workshop on Real Time Polymerise Chain Reaction (PCR), a technology which has become an essential research and diagnostic tool for human health and quality of life the world-over, here on Thursday (August 11).
The UHS Department of Physiology & Cell Biology will be organising the workshop, which will be facilitated by two experts from Japan, Edward Gratwick and Hiroaki Yamamoto.
UHS physiology department head Professor Muhammad Arslan, Dr Nelofar Kurashi and Dr Afia Hasnain will supervise the workshop. Regarding the workshop, Dr Arslan explained the PCR technology was useful for detection and characterisation of a variety of microbes.
It has been useful in a variety of chronic viral infections like HIV, hepatitis B&C virus, human papillomavirus, (cytomegalovirus). He added the PCR has been crucial for detection of HIV infection in neonates and for rapid diagnosis of pulmonary infections in immune-compromised hosts.