The Role of Droplet Digital PCR in Characterization of Viral Vectors for Gene Therapy

David Dobnik, PhD

Scientific Associate ‑ National Institute of Biology

David Dobnik, PhD in biotechnology has been working at NIB for 12 years. His main focus area is development of new nucleic acid detection/quantification approaches. He started with development of novel isothermal amplification methods for detection and quantification of DNA targets. He developed innovative system of simultaneous multiplex isothermal amplification and detection of DNA and RNA targets (Dobnik et al., 2014). Lately majority of his work has been focused on digital PCR. As first in the world, he and his colleagues reported a high‑level multiplex absolute quantification with Droplet Digital PCR (Dobnik et al., 2015; 2016) and one of the developed methods (Bogožalec Košir et al., 2017) is now on the list of accredited methods for GMO detection under ISO 17025.

He has been in close contacts with companies for gene therapy, helping in process development with characterizations of viral vectors. He also conducted training workshops for digital PCR and executed a digital PCR tech transfer to pharmaceutical company. He continues to work in the field of gene therapy in cooperation with virus vector manufacturing companies.