Traditionally, extracting and amplifying DNA from a biological sample has required a series of complex and cumbersome steps that can only be performed in a laboratory. Now, Univ. of Queensland researchers — led by Jimmy Botella, professor of plant biotechnology, and Michael Mason, a postdoctoral research fellow — have developed a dipstick that can capture and purify nucleic acids from a wide range of plant, animal, and microbe samples without specialized equipment.
