Reflection on Primer Design
The discussion this week was an informative dive into primer design and optimization. Overall, I felt like this week exposed me to a lot of new content (plus many new acronyms!) and offered a thorough behind the scene look into primer design, in silico testing, amplification, melt curves, and even how and where to order primers. I especially appreciated having the chance to listen in on the technical debates and decisions that follow each step of this process.
The Park et al. (2000) grounded this discussion in the all too real importance of primer selection and optimization for accurate COVID-19 testing. I was surprised and a bit horrified that many of the primer kits in use at the time of the paper were not in fact optimized. I was further astonished by Erin’s comment towards the end of the discussion that revealed that the researchers working to identify COVID-19 variants are early career scientists, rather than government-funded employees. For a DNA testing step as important as primer optimization, it seems as though there should be dedicated federal research funds in place to encourage this type of analysis. In light of a global pandemic and the future potential for other public health crises of this scale, support for work that improves the efficiency and accuracy of disease detection seems imperative.