GenomeWeb recently published an article about Ubiquitome's newest portable qPCR platform.  Ubiquitome is commercializing a 16-well real-time PCR instrument that is aimed at personalizing the method and making it more accessible to researchers. Their new Liberty16 instrument is designed to be easily used in the field. MLML Research Faculty Holly Bowers recently won USC Sea Grant funding from the Ocean Protection Council Proposition 84 to study toxic algae using the Liberty16.

"Bowers' new funding will allow her group to take the Liberty16 into the field, and do PCR 'boatside, or shoreside,' she said, to detect different algae species in the water and to support local stakeholders. Boatside, and even 'tankside' research is much like bedside genomics, in which a clinician runs a test right next to a patient, she said. 'This takes us, as algal scientists, into that realm of thinking.' "

To read more about how researchers are using this new technology you can read the full article here.