Patent ID: 7695941

Claim:
A method comprising: extracting nucleic acids from a clinical sample obtained from an organism to produce a target sample containing background DNA of the organism and suspected of containing one or more pathogen nucleic acids from a predefined set of pathogens; adding to the target sample a plurality of PCR primers corresponding to genes found in the predefined set of pathogens; wherein the PCR primers include at least 30 different primer pairs; wherein the primers include at least one primer pair for each pathogen; wherein the primers comprise a tail sequence that is not homologous to the DNA of any of the predefined set of pathogens or to the DNA of the species of the organism; and performing a polymerase chain reaction on the combined target sample and PCR primers to amplify a subset of the nucleic acids that correspond to the genes to produce an amplified sample; wherein the concentration of at least one primer in the polymerase chain reaction is no more than 50 nM.