Laboratory techniques based on nucleic acid methods have increased in popularity over the last decade with clinical microbiologists and other laboratory scientists who are concerned with the diagnosis of infectious agents. This increase in popularity is a result primarily of advances made in nucleic acid amplification and detection techniques. Polymerase chain reaction, the original nucleic acid amplification technique, changed the way many people viewed and used nucleic acid techniques in clinical settings. After the potential of polymerase chain reaction became apparent, other methods of nucleic acid amplification and detection were developed. These alternative nucleic acid amplification methods may become serious contenders for application to routine laboratory analyses. This review presents some background information on nucleic acid analyses that might be used in clinical and anatomical laboratories and describes some recent advances in the amplification and detection of nucleic acids.