Sunday, March 19

1:30 Pre-Conference Short Course Tutorial Registration

2:00 Pre-Conference Short Course Tutorial *
Everything You Need to Know about Designing High Efficiency Real-Time Quantitative PCR Assays
Dr. Gregory L. Shipley, Assistant Professor and Director, Quantitative Genomics Core Laboratory, Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology, The University of Texas Health Science Center- Houston
Although there are many "ready made" real-time assays available from several companies on the market, most of them do not allow the end user to obtain a quantified value for each individual sample tested. Rather, a fold difference related to a reference sample in the experiment can be calculated. For some experiments, a fold difference is sufficient. However, in many cases it is desirable to obtain quantitative values for each sample to maximize the statistical analysis of the data. For many commercial assays the actual primer and/or probe sequences are not known. For many species, there are no commercially available assays. This course will outline how to select the correct sequence, design efficient real-time qPCR assays and perform the quality control necessary not only to run the assay effectively, but also ensure that the resulting data is reliable. Issues regarding the publication of data derived from real-time qPCR will be discussed. Time will be set aside at the end of the presentation to answer questions from the audience.

Who should attend:
This course is applicable to anyone using real-time PCR in their research, regardless of their experience level. The lessons on assay design will pertain to both probe-based and nonprobe-based real-time assays. *Separate Registration Required

5:00-6:00 Early Registration