The molecular department is located on the 4th floor of th building. This department is completely classified into three separated rooms. Extraction room (Pre-PCR), PCR room (Post-PCR) and electrophoresis room. To consider the whole safety rules and prevention of pollution, every room is equipped with its special equipment and the staff uses the dressing gown and slippers in every section of the department.
There are two chemical hoods and a laminar one in Pre-PCR that the laminar hood is used for extraction and the chemical ones are used for two purposes; one for Mix preparation and the other for DNA injection. Also, there is an apparatus called QIA-Cube which is an automatic extractor. Refrigerated centrifuge, conventional centrifuge, and microcentrifuge are the other equipment of the Pre-PCR room.
After extraction, mix preparation, and DNA injection, we enter the Post-PCR room for PCR operation which is done by both real-time and conventional techniques in this department. For conventional PCR, after PCR by thermocycler, PCR product is run along with the agarose gel in an electrophoresis tank in the electrophoresis room and then is read as bands by a device that is called gel documentation system (duct-gel). For real-time operation in post-PCR, there are two apparatuses called Corbett and its newer generation is called Rotor-gene Q which many PCR tests consist of viral and genomic PCR by diagnostic kits and also setting up tests by an experienced staff of the department.
The most important tests which are done in this department include HBV quantitative and qualitative PCR, HCV quantitative and qualitative PCR and HCV genotyping and also HPV genotyping which are detected through both diagnostic kit and designed primers for diagnosing 14 HPV genotypes which are critical and hazardous, MTB, Brucella PCR and also the other types of viral PCR. Genomic PCR tests include BCR-ABL, JAK2 and other types of genomic tests.
