DNA technology to check water
Horticulture Week
29 May 2009

Plant experts have harnessed DNA fingerprinting to check the quality of water following the EU’s Water Framework Directive.

The technology replaces traditional use of microscopes with scores of samples that can be analysed simultaneously.

The breakthrough was made by EnPrint, a new “spin-out company” from the Scottish Crop Research Institute, based in Dundee.

“Low standards of water quality may threaten the aquatic environment, drinking-water quality and recreational water use,” said a representative. EnPrint chief executive Dr Rayne Longhurst added that medicine and forensics benefit from DNA fingerprinting technology and “we are perfectly placed to introduce a similar approach in the environmental sector”.