Dr. Jonathan Brody, assistant professor of surgery at Jefferson, in Philadelphia, and Dr. Scott Kern at Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore, developed a process that makes a DNA separation technique called electrophoresis five times faster and less expensive than now possible.

"It turns out that all of the buffers people have been using for 30 years have been the wrong choice," said Brody, because the standard method is more expensive and takes longer.

The scientists said they discovered the compound lithium boric acid in DNA electrophoresis is the optimal solution for that usage.

"A process that normally takes around one and a half, two hours to do can be done in 10 minutes -- in some instances it can be 10-fold faster," he said, noting the discovery could have a range of applications, since the neurosciences, developmental biology and many other fields now involve DNA analysis.

"A lot of our science is abstract and incremental," he added. "How often do you get a chance to impact nearly every field in science at once?"