The MIQE Guidelines' tenth anniversary: The good and bad students

Abstract The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) is the most valuable tool that marked the history of molecular biology since the discovery of the DNA structure by Watson and Crick. Its impact on human health over the last 30 years had lead researchers in the field to put strict rules referred to as the Minimum Information for publication of Quantitative real-time PCR Experiments (MIQE) guidelines since 2009. The aim of the current analysis is to shed light on the practice of applying and citing the original MIQE in the published articles over the last decade. We showed that qPCR is a global technique, but the usage of the MIQE is still lagging in the emerging economies around the globe. We have shown that researchers following the MIQE have better chances of publishing highly cited papers. The MIQE represent the laws for this technique: they enslave us, molecular biologists, into a strict path with financial burdens, but they free us from the “human-errors” a machine would impose on us. As science seeks perfection especially when dealing with human problems, the MIQE, as assessed by the publications' quality over the years, did indeed achieve this step forward towards making the PCR an infallible tool.