Patent 7718790 was granted and assigned to Pharmasset on May, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Processes and methods for the simultaneous quantification of nucleic acids in diseased cells that are based on real-time PCR are provided. The real-time PCR protocol is an excellent tool for reliable quantification of in vitro drug screening and evaluation protocols to determine the efficacy of potential anti-viral agents. Quantification using these simultaneous PCR cycle threshold (Ct) detection techniques during one-step real-time RT-PCR (Applied Biosystems, CA) eliminates the variability resulting from quantification of end-point RT-PCR products. In addition, the mitochondrial toxicity assay is an added tool to assess potential side-effects for these chemotherapeutic agents.