Patent ID: 7666592

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 polymerase chain reaction amplification conditions; and a known quantity of a calibration polynucleotide comprising a calibration sequence designed to produce a calibration amplicon as a result of polymerase chain reaction 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 polymerase chain reaction amplification product comprising a bioagent identifying amplicon and a second polymerase chain reaction amplification product comprising a calibration amplicon; obtaining molecular mass data and abundance data for said first and second polymerase chain reaction 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 polymerase chain reaction amplification products based on their respective molecular masses, wherein the molecular mass of said first polymerase chain reaction amplification product identifies said bioagent, and the molecular mass of said second polymerase chain reaction amplification product identifies said calibration amplicon; and calculating the quantity of said bioagent from said abundance data of said first and second polymerase chain reaction amplification products.