Hi Paul,

this very much depends on your intended throughput, financial abilities and - as always, as you know - on the question you're asking.

For 'simple' gene expression studies any of the machines will do, also the cheaper ones.

There is an excellent overview on all machines on the marked in Germany's 'Lab Times' (Laborjournal). Unless your German didn't get to rusty, you will probably get your desired overview.

There is, however, the issue of downstream costs, that are not listed in the prices for the machines and they vary much depending on your bargaining success (excellent as always, I guess), your country from where you are buying and from the provider. This very rappidly will cost a similar amount as the machines...

Hi Dierk,

Actually I was speaking German on Saturday for a couple of hours. Do you have the details of the Laborjournal article?

One reason to read German in science is this phantastic monthly issue of Laborjournal - much more worth than just a favorite  'toilet read'...

Here you go:

http://www.laborjournal.de/rubric/produkte/products_15/2015_12.lasso

...and if you pay me and my family, I'll come by and set it up for you

:-)

Cheers

Eigentlich hatte ich was anders vor, und zwar meine Familie und ich fliegen nach Deutschland um alles ueber qPCR von Euch zu lernen - wie ist das Bier in Saarbruecken?

Hallo Ihr Zwei!

Schön zu sehen, das ihr immer noch im regen Austausch seid...:)

Erinnere mich immer noch gerne an die guten alten Zeiten im MPI-Seminarraum... in der letzten Reihe sitzend die Abteilungs-Seminare kommentierend....

(Paul: ... well, I already did this experiment several years ago... - HERRLICH... von meinen eigenen defätistischen Kommentaren ganz zu schweigen... :)...

Liebe Grüße,

Volker

If you need a sensitive analysis and cost is not an issue, you can go for Digital droplet PCR by Bio-RAD. It can even sense the single stand of your target DNA because of the technology