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Internal, Positive, and Negative Controls

This Medical Laboratory Science lesson in Molecular Diagnostics supports laboratory science learning and laboratory interpretation for medical laboratory students and professionals.

Identify internal, positive, and negative controls used during polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and how they protect result validity, including why a failed internal control is not a safe negative.

Intermediate8 min read15 sectionsMolecular Diagnostics
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Learning Objectives

Getting started

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Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

Section: Learning Objectives

Each objective is a clinical PCR skill for medical laboratory scientists, not advanced biochemistry.

  • Identify the purpose of positive, negative, and internal controls used with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification
  • State what each control type protects against during amplification and detection
  • Recognize that a failed internal control (IC) makes a 'not detected' patient result unsafe to report as a true negative until resolved per the standard operating procedure (SOP)

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