MoBEES: a facility for Molecular Studies in Biodiversity, Ecology, and Environmental Sciences

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Understanding how genes influence the form, function and fitness of living organisms is a fundamental goal of evolutionary genetics. Gene expression analysis is therefore vital to research progress, yet this analysis is often constrained by limits to the statistical resolution and power of conventional real-time PCR. This limit frequently masks biologically important variation in gene expression and prevents a comprehensive and accurate exploration of the functional genomic underpinning of adaptively complex traits. This shortcoming is circumvented, however, by new technology that allows for the ultra-precise measurement of gene expression. This innovation, made possible by 'digital droplet' polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) technology provides orders of magnitude more precision and sensitivity than conventional gene expression technology. This break-through for molecular biology is analogous to the relationship between the number of pixels and the resolution of a digital image, allowing biologists to 'see' what genes are doing like never before.