Qubit vs Nanodrop - (Apr/08/2011 )

Hi, Folks

My lab is considering buying an instrument for measuring DNA concentration. What we mainly need is to measure DNA concentration before the sample going to qPCR. So the DNA concentration need to be as exact as possible.

We are choosing between Qubit and Nanodrop 2000.

I kind of think that Qubit can do better than Nanodrop since I've read that Nanodrop can not separate DNA from RNA, but don't know if that is a big problem for us. Our DNA samples are extracted from wood with CTAB buffer.

One of the draw back of Qubit I think is that I need to buy assay and tubes in the future.

Am interesting on any thought and experience on these two instrument.

Many thanks.

Have a look here.
It's also available as pdf with more informations and I had it once, should be somewhere on their website for downloads.
AND: It's from Invitrogen, therefore surely biased...handle with care!

The handy thing about the nanodrop is that there is no preparation time - just put your sample on the pedestal and away you go. It does tend to be slightly less accurate than some other spec methods, but it's not usually a problem, as there is inherent error in the measurement anyway.

The Qubit requires mixing your samples with solutions (which you have to buy from Invitrogen) and as far as I can tell is just another spec, such as you might already have in the lab anyway.

Thanks

I just found out that Nanodrop cost $9000 compare to Qubit $2000. Even considering the cost of supplies, I think Qubit is cheaper than Nanodrop from this view.

Marvin on Tue Apr 12 16:02:52 2011 said:

We got it for free, but now the few included solutions are gone, and we're back to a normal spectrophotometer . I guess selling solutions and reaction cups is the main profit for them (similar to mobile phone companies and their contracts ).