Patent ID: 8187814

Claim:
A method for simultaneous analysis of the identity and quantity of a bioagent in a sample comprising: contacting nucleic acid of said sample with: a pair of primers designed to produce a bioagent identifying amplicon from said nucleic acid under amplification conditions; and a known quantity of a calibration polynucleotide comprising a calibration sequence designed to produce a calibration amplicon as a result of amplification with said primers under said amplification conditions; concurrently amplifying said nucleic acid and said calibration sequence with said pair of primers in the same amplification mixture to obtain a first amplification product comprising a bioagent identifying amplicon and a second amplification product comprising a calibration amplicon; obtaining molecular mass data and abundance data for said first and second amplification products in said amplification mixture wherein the 5′ and 3′ ends of said amplification products are the sequences of said pair of primers or complements thereof; distinguishing said first and second amplification products based on their respective molecular masses; comparing the molecular mass of said first amplification product with a database of molecular masses of bioagent identifying amplicons for known bioagents wherein a match between the molecular mass of said first amplification product and a molecular mass of a bioagent identifying amplicon for a known bioagent in a database indicates the identity of said bioagent, and a molecular mass of said second amplification product identifies said calibration amplicon; and calculating the quantity of said bioagent from said abundance data of said first and second amplification products.