By combining mass spectrometry and mass cytometry imaging techniques, researchers can now dive deeper into tumors and map the metabolism of individual cells in tumor tissue.
Brazilian researchers have identified a key mechanism of Sars-CoV-2 to manipulate its host’s immune defense. This discovery could pave the way for the development of novel therapies.
Microproteins hold great promise, according to new research: Since they are only expressed by liver tumor cells, the proteins could serve as a potential target for cancer vaccine development.
Endoscopy is pivotal in diagnosing and managing ulcerative colitis. Recent technology advances allow for early cancer detection, precise disease assessment and targeted biopsies, improving diagnosis and monitoring. The following article takes a look at the latest advancements.
Researchers discovered three distinct immunological endophenotypes of multiple sclerosis, defined by specific blood immune signatures. This opens new avenues for personalized treatment strategies.
Researchers have unveiled a detailed understanding of immune responses in cancer, potentially paving the way for the development of new therapeutic strategies, the team hopes.
Academic labs and biotech firms pioneer multi-cancer early detection with emerging technologies. Screening for multiple cancers with a simple blood or urinary draw could be a game-changer. Two research teams in particular have advanced the field.
While screening programs for several of the commonest cancers are now well established, lung cancer screening has yet to reach anywhere near the same proportion of at-risk patients.
An 'encyclopaedia' of protein alterations in soft tissue sarcomas could open the door to a new era of understanding and treatment for this group of rare cancers.
For pancreatic cancer, the effect of immunotherapy is limited and differs between men and women. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now found a possible explanation for this sex difference.
Scientists are developing a new kind of light-activated cancer treatments. This would work by switching on LED lights embedded close to a tumour, which would then activate biotherapeutic drugs.
Scientists have discovered that cervical cancer can be divided into 2 distinct molecular subgroups – one far more aggressive than the other – as part of the largest ‘omics’ study of its kind.
A major advance demonstrates first multi-organ chip made of engineered human tissues linked by vascular flow for improved modeling of systemic diseases like cancer.
Researchers at the University of Sussex are one step further to developing a blood test capable of diagnosing the most aggressive form of brain tumour.
Mark Nicholls reports from the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) virtual Festival, with four expert speakers discussing the role of liquid biopsy in cancer detection.
To avoid adverse reactions, personalised laboratory medicine can help to predict a patient’s drug response. Investigations based on DNA and other omics technologies – e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics – along with microarray technologies, is making a particularly valuable contribution to cancer care, in which personalised approaches are becoming possible through…
Uppsala University scientists have designed a new mouse model that facilitates study of factors contributing to the progression of human bladder cancer and of immune-system activation when the tumour is growing. Using this model, they have been able to study how proteins change before, while and after a tumour develops in the bladder wall. The study has now been published in the scientific…
Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Francis Crick Institute have developed a mass spectrometry-based technique capable of measuring samples containing thousands of proteins within just a few minutes. It is faster and cheaper than a conventional blood count. To demonstrate the technique’s potential, the researchers used blood plasma collected from Covid-19 patients.…
BOLD-100/KP1339 is a ruthenium-based anticancer agent that has been co-developed at the University of Vienna and which has shown promising results in clinical trials in cancer patients. However, the mode of action of this metal compound has not yet been fully elucidated. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna have now been able to demonstrate that BOLD-100…
Harnessing the power of radiomics, and adopting an integrated approach to combine imaging and patient data could lead to better clinical cancer outcomes. The move has opened the door for clinicians to explore a non-invasive approach to identify the heterogeneity of a tumour and more accurately target regions for biopsy. During a presentation at ECR 2021 in March, Professor Evis Sala will…
Scientists from Würzburg and the US have charted the first global atlas of direct interactions between SARS-CoV-2 RNA and human host cells. This may provide a starting point for novel treatments. SARS-CoV-2 infections pose a global threat to human health and a formidable research challenge. One of the most urgent tasks is to gain a detailed understanding of the molecular interactions between the…
Since the Covid-19 epidemic took hold, the public has expected ‘unprecedented progress from the scientific community,’ observed Dan Shine, senior vice president and president of the analytical instruments division of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. ‘A deeper analysis of proteins is critical to understanding disease, including novel viruses. New instruments, software and workflows can power…
The fight against bacterial infections, especially those caused by resistant pathogens, is in full swing with the search for new antibiotic agents. The aim is to identify substances that attack the pathogens in a truly novel way. The team at the Center for Systems-Based Antibiotic Research (Cesar) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) has described in two publications how assess if a new antibiotic…
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common muscle disease in children and is passed on by X-linked recessive inheritance. Characteristic is a progressive muscular atrophy. The disease often results in death before the third decade of life. Researchers of the Universities of Maynooth (Ireland) and Bonn have found a connection between dystrophic muscles and the lymphatic system in mice…
More than 73,000 users collaborate on new online platform set up by the European Open Science Cloud Initiative, where scientists share COVID-19 data and accelerate our understanding of the virus to help develop treatments and vaccines quicker.
Resistance of cancer cells against therapeutic agents is a major cause of treatment failure, especially in recurrent diseases. An international team around the biochemists Robert Ahrends from the University of Vienna and Jan Medenbach from the University of Regensburg identified a novel mechanism of chemoresistance which has now been published in "Nature Communications". It is driven by…
Scientists in the life sciences can now benefit from upgrades to a suite of analytical software solutions with new features designed to enhance productivity, confidence and accuracy in numerous fields, including proteomics, food safety and biotherapeutic drug development. The latest suite of software strengthens laboratory workflows across a range of applications through expanded capabilities,…
A team of biochemists and virologists at Goethe University and the Frankfurt University Hospital were able to observe how human cells change upon infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19 in people. The scientists tested a series of compounds in laboratory models and found some which slowed down or stopped virus reproduction. These results now enable the search for an active substance…
NEC Corporation announced analysis results from efforts using AI prediction platforms to design blueprints for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that can drive potent T-cell responses in the majority of the global population. This initiative by the scientific teams within the NEC Group to help combat outbreaks of COVID-19 and support international vaccine development efforts is led by NEC OncoImmunity (NOI) in…
A protein newly identified as important in type 1 diabetes can delay onset of the disease in diabetic mice, providing a new target for prevention and treatment in people, according to research led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Indiana University School of Medicine. Because type 1 diabetes is incurable and has serious lifelong health…
Due to the scientific and technical developments in recombinant DNA technology and protein engineering since the early 1980s, therapeutic proteins have emerged as one of the most important classes of new pharmaceuticals. Currently, more than 200 protein and peptide based drugs have gained approval by the USA’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and many more are under preclinical or clinical…
Proteins in our blood could in future help provide a comprehensive ‘liquid health check’, assessing our health and predicting the likelihood that we will we will develop a range of diseases. Preventative medicine programmes such as the UK National Health Service’s Health Check and Healthier You programmes are aimed at improving our health and reducing our risk of developing diseases. While…
For almost any conceivable protein, corresponding antibodies can be developed to block it from binding or changing shape, which ultimately prevents it from carrying out its normal function. As such, scientists have looked to antibodies as a way of shutting down proteins inside cells for decades, but there is still no consistent way to get them past the cell membrane in meaningful numbers. Now,…
Chronobiologists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, show in two articles how critical the sleep-wake cycle is for protein and phosphorylation dynamics in synapses to ultimately regulate its activity.
Many countries across the world are challenged with a rising number of incidences of multi-drug resistant (MDR) organisms infecting the population, and for several years, a clear pattern of increased resistance has emerged in southern and eastern European countries. For example, in countries such as Italy, a reduced number of therapeutic options remain available for highly pathogenic infections,…
Oncimmune Holdings plc, a leading global immunodiagnostics group, announces it has entered into an exclusive partnership agreement which it believes will unlock the full potential of EarlyCDT Lung in the United States, bringing this lung cancer test to more patients as a result. This agreement with Biodesix, Inc., a leading lung cancer diagnostic solutions company, encompasses both the…
During a European Society of Hybrid, Molecular and Translational Imaging (ESHI) session at ECR 2019, three speakers discussed the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in hybrid imaging. While AI and machine learning is supporting clinicians using hybrid techniques such as PET/CT, MR/PET, or ultrasound and CT, challenges remain in ‘training the machines’ to add value to radiologists’ and…
The majority of women who undergo surgery for suspected ovarian cancer do not have cancer. A novel blood test developed by researchers at Uppsala University and the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, now offers the possibility of more precise diagnostics without the need for surgery. This could lead to a reduction in unnecessary surgery and to earlier detection and treatment for…
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to push development of imaging biomarkers shows great promise to improve disease understanding. This alliance could be a game changer in healthcare but, to advance research, clinical validation and variability of results must be factored in, a prominent Spanish radiologist advises. In clinical practice efforts are already ongoing to apply AI to obtain new…
Liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is an established powerful tool in routine clinical use and clinical research. However, to further capitalise on its benefits, instrument and consumables vendors should continue to improve accessibility and ease-of-use, according to Dr Debadeep Bhattacharyya, senior marketing manager for clinical and forensic at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Remarkable…
‘Is it possible to know whether a treatment will work before even starting it – in other words, to predict the truth? That’s the great promise of holomics, a concept that everyone has been involved in without even noticing,’ said leading French physicist Irène Buvat, from the In Vivo Molecular Imaging French lab, who is set to focus on this subject at ECR 2019. ‘The truth,’ said…
In healthy individuals, the Zika virus causes flu-like symptoms. If a pregnant woman becomes infected, the unborn child can suffer from severe brain abnormalities as a result of mechanisms that have not yet been explained. A study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (MPI-B) shows that Zika virus proteins bind to cellular proteins that are…
A range of new biomarkers and diagnostics for precision cardiovascular medicine were outlined in a session at the British Cardiovascular Society annual conference held recently in Manchester. Speakers from King’s British Heart Foundation Centre looked at how mass spectrometry allows clinicians to measure large numbers of proteins simultaneously, discussed a new biomarker for cardiac ischaemia…
LC/MS, i.e. the combination of liquid chromatography (LC) with mass spectrometry (MS) – an analytical method developed primarily for environmental analysis and live science – remains a keen topic in the medical laboratory. In recent European Hospital issues, we have outlined various reasons why this procedure is in increasingly popular in the medical lab. Here we continue with an interview…
The first defense line of the body against virus infections is composed of so-called restriction factors. SAMHD1, one of such restriction factors, does not only play a role in the defense against viruses but also in the development of autoimmune disorders and cancer. The question of which effect SAMHD1 exertsin the cell is decided by addition or removal of phosphate groups.
‘Breast cancer rates are continuously increasing, and we don’t yet have a means of prevention,’ said Dr Clemens Kaiser, from the Medical Faculty Mannheim, at Heidelberg University, who believes the only way to save more patients from death, after providing the best possible diagnostics procedures, is via precision medicine: the right treatment at the earliest possible time. The radiologist…
Imagine a small paper device that can rapidly reveal from a drop of blood whether an infection is bacterial or viral. The device could help reduce the overuse of antibiotics – which kill bacteria, not viruses. Misuse of antibiotics has led to antimicrobial resistance, a growing global public health issue. Senior biomedical engineering students at Rutgers University–New Brunswick came up with…
Up to the early 16th century, essentially medical diagnostics was limited to uroscopy – the observation of a urine sample in a uroscopy flask with a candle providing light. One hundred years later, the first microscopes were developed and from then on the development of technical devices and instruments boomed. Combining chromatography instruments and mass spectrometers began with the sole…
Up to the early 16th century, essentially medical diagnostics was limited to uroscopy – the observation of a urine sample in a uroscopy flask with a candle providing light. In a visual examination the doctor would determine the colour of the urine as well as cloudiness and precipitates, followed by a smell and taste test. The information he gathered provided the basis of his diagnosis. 100…
In old age a variety of cellular processes decline and the risk to develop age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Diabetes increases dramatically. But does ageing affect all organs and tissues in the body in the same way? And should drugs that are developed to improve health in old age have the same effect on every organ? Now scientists from the Max Planck Institute for…
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly types of malignancies, with a 5-year survival rate after late diagnosis of only about 5%. The majority of patients—about 80%—receive their diagnosis too late for surgery. The disease spreads quickly and resists chemotherapy. In short, there is an urgent need for diagnostic tools to identify this cancer in its earliest stages.
Cancer biomarker testing represents an important element of the clinical biochemistry service, yet progress in this area in the last two decades has been slow.
Novel blood or urine tests can now detect a tumour and but might in future be able to say what type of cancer is developing in which organ.
Scientists at a UK university are using the power of mass spectrometry to research critical processes in human prostate cancer.
‘Magnetic resonance imaging is a very dynamic field,’ declared Professor Siegfried Trattnig, head of the Centre of Excellence for High Field MRI in the Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, at Vienna Medical University. Indeed, this September, two mega trends emphasised by Trattnig – the shift from qualitative to quantitative imaging and Big Data – dominated the 33rd…
SCIEX’s donation to the WCRF following several significant research partnerships with world-leading cancer scientists to advance the promise of Precision Medicine.
Big Data sits at the heart of addressing the challenges that will lead to a more sustainable health and social care system. Hospitals and health systems must embrace a Big Data approach if they are to deliver better care for patients according to Dr Mark Davies, Medical Director of healthcare analytics company MedeAnalytics. Report: Mark Nicholls
Fusion imaging will create a multi-modality monster for radiology groups that already struggle to deal with data from dual-modality hybrid systems. It’s like acquiring a Porsche but only able to use 1st gear.
‘Lab medicine connects’ is the congress theme of the German Congress of Laboratory Medicine and reflects the fact that laboratory medicine is an interdisciplinary subject like no other and connects those who are involved in medicine across disciplines. It works almost imperceptibly in the background, hardly noticed by patients. European Hospital spoke with this year’s Congress President,…
As medical professionals search for new ways to personalize diagnosis and treatment of disease, RPB-supported researchers at the University of Iowa have already put into practice what may be the next big step in precision medicine: personalized proteomics.
Personalised medicine relies strongly on biobanking in which medical data are collected on a large scale. Large scale refers both to the amount of data collected per patient as well as to the large number of patients included in the data collection. Although most attention in biobanking has been given to genetic data, proteomics, metabolomics and other –omics technologies, imaging is also being…
An international public-private research consortium has identified and validated a cellular role of a primary Parkinson’s disease drug target, the LRRK2 kinase. This important finding illuminates a novel route for therapeutic development and intervention testing for Parkinson’s, the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s.
Randox Laboratories and Biosystems International have announced the beginning of clinical validation of a lung cancer early detection test.
Systems medicine – the interdisciplinary field incorporating biochemical, physiological and environmental interactions in the study of human body systems as part of an integrated whole – draws heavily on the technological advances in information technology (IT). New ways to use data impact on healthcare and society, says Professor Dr Heyo Kroemer, Dean of the Medical School, Georg August…
During the past 15 years, liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) has evolved into a vital technology used to perform routine tests in many clinical laboratories. Historically, LC-MS/MS had been used primarily by research, pharmaceutical, or commercial laboratories; however, advances in the technology, decreasing costs for basic systems, intelligible software, an increased…
Life sciences company Proteomics International Laboratories (ASX: PIQ) is pleased to announce that it has produced and validated a predictive test for the diagnosis of diabetic kidney disease (DKD). The test, called PromarkerD, is the world's first proteomics-derived predictive (prognostic) test for the diagnosis of DKD, and represents a global breakthrough in the diagnosis and treatment of the…
Women with metastatic breast cancer know they have a slim chance of long-term survival. The question is whether personalised therapy could extend their lives. Report: Cynthia E Keen
The term ‘cancer’ describes more than 200 different diseases and every single one needs to be clearly understood and requires, ideally, individual treatment. To do this we need to deepen our understanding the cancer genome. Report: Anja Behringer
Gideon Ho, CEO and co-founder of Singapore-based HistoIndex is confident: ‘After a biopsy a patient waits in a hospital bed, but now, instead of waiting a couple days until doctors know how to treat this patient, we can deliver results while the patient is still in the hospital.’ Report: John Brosky
We live in a connected world, a very different world than it was a decade ago, said Eric Topol MD. Mobile devices, wearable devices are driving a creative revolution, reducing costs of healthcare, increasing patient access to health information.
A recent study from the Heidelberg-based company Sciomics, a spin-off from scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), has presented an advanced method to predict the recurrence of bladder cancer after surgery. The method, which can help avoid frequent cystoscopy examinations in a majority of patients, is based on an analysis of the protein composition of cancer tissue obtained…
Double-digit growth in Asia-Pacific and emerging markets to offset stagnation in US and Europe.
The Allegra X-5 air-cooled benchtop centrifuge from Beckman Coulter Life Sciences is designed specifically for clinical sample preparation.
Aspects of new healthcare legislation are causing concern among medical laboratory experts in the United Kingdom – including the lack of future funding for innovation and development under a new reimbursement model, little appetite to quantify the cost effectiveness of laboratory testing, reduced staffing and a shift in emphasis that will see the need to make profit over-ride initiative and…
Petabytes of data on each patient will become the foundation of future diagnostics and therapy. Genetics, imaging and environmental information – toxins, lifestyle – will deliver a precise picture of the individual, allowing for diagnostic precision and targeted treatments.
The 24th International Symposium of the AACC Critical & Point of Care Testing Division. Report: Michael Reiter
Petabytes of data on each patient will become the foundation of future diagnostics and therapy.
Early arthritis is characterized by autoreactivity (reactivity against self-antigens) of T-B lymphocytes and by the synthesis of autoantibodies crucial for diagnosis (biomarkers). Detection of panels of autoantibodies increases the sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of arthritis. The variability in the performance of autoantibody assays may impact the predictive value. Confirmation of…
‘Three years is a long time in the world of research. The amount of information on offer quickly grows quite enormously,’ says Professor Rudolf Tauber, joint head of this year’s WorldLab congress with Professor Harald Renz. Thus, one organisational challenge was to channel current trends and developments and present participants with an informative, comprehensive overview. How was this…
When planning radiotherapy the combination of positron emission tomography (PET) and Computed tomography (CT) can provide a better outcome than CT alone. Michael Krassnitzer asked Terri Bresenham MSc BSc, Vice President for Molecular Imaging at GE Healthcare, for her views on the value of PET/CT, the new EANM guidelines, novel tracers and the future of other hybrid imaging technologies.
Precise regulation of tissue architecture is critical for organ function. Single cells build up a tissue by communicating with their environment and with other cells, thereby receiving instructions on whether to divide, change shape or migrate. An interdisciplinary group of researchers from several Max Planck Institutes have now identified a mechanism by which skin cells organize their interior…
The 3-year Translational Research On Combating Antimicrobial Resistance (TROCAR) project, a consortium of 14 European institutes, has completed its first year of molecular study of high-risk antibiotic-resistant bacteria. With expertise ranging from medical microbiology to computational analysis, this network of excellence is on track to identify and target the resistant and multi-resistant…
Molecular imaging, a new science that emerged from molecular biology, is unlike traditional imaging. Whilst the latter can, for example, show the differences in proton density or water content on MRI, molecular imaging uses biomarkers (probes) that interact selectively with molecules within an area and then generate the image according to fine molecular alterations occurring inside (e.g. within a…
The 'omics' revolution of the last decade has ensured that the field of biomarker research will test the frontiers of biomedical research in the coming years. Biomarkers have a multitude of applications such as early disease detection, identifying potential drug targets, predicting patient response to medication and accelerating clinical trials. Along with its role in making personalised medicine…
ECCO 15 – ESMO 34, the joint congress of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), is Europe’s largest oncology meeting; the event drew to Berlin 15,000 participants from 120 countries this September, when more than 2,000 presentations were made. Among the presentations on prevention, treatment and survivorship, proteomics, biomarkers,…
Cancer research is progressing rapidly. For a large part, biology contributes to its most significant advances, which aim to renew the whole model of cancer care.
The first joint congress ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 of the European CanCer Organisation (ECCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) is taking place this week in Berlin. It is the only congress in Europe that covers the entire spectrum of cancer from basic science and translational research, to prevention, treatment, nursing and supportive care for all types of tumours.
By David Loshak
"In-vitro veritas", the slogan of the 18th European Congress of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, which took place in June, underlined the significance of in vitro diagnostics for healthcare, and the presentations by 90 speakers, in 32 scientific sessions and 29 industry sponsored workshops, demonstrated the rich variety of developments.
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) and the Australasian Association of Clinical Biochemists (AACB) are joining together for the second time for a conference on major changes facing laboratorians in coming years, under the banner Laboratory Medicine - Into the Future.
The French firm bioMérieux and ProteoSys, based in Mainz, Germany, have signed a license and development agreement for Annexin 3 to be used to develop a urine-based, confirmatory diagnostic test for prostate cancer.
Laboratory automation of the 21st century demonstrates, every second, that in the 30 years since labs took their first tentative steps towards automation it has advanced by orders of magnitude - and moved far beyond the ambitions of its progenitors. Driven by the imperatives of greater efficiency, more precision and round-the-clock operation, ever more sophisticated forms of automation are now…
Nearly 14 000 urologists from 84 countries attended the 23rd Annual congress of the European Association of Urology held in Milan, where changing horizons in the diagnosis and therapy of prostate cancer, a symposium sponsored by Ipsen, underlined the main focus of the entire event.
The Uliazpi Foundation in Spain, which studies and cares for severely mentally retarded patients, carried out an interesting study to identify bone mineral density values in a group of its patients, compare these with the general population and investigate the possible influence on these values on certain clinical variables and therapeutic regimens.
A new blood test is under development that has detected two kinds of proteins found in people suffering Alzheimer's.
The objective of the CNIC is to lead cardiovascular research in Spain and establish itself as a leading international centre.
Generating targeting agents for diagnostics, prognostics and radiotherapy, by designing biochemically specific elements in contrast agents to be the targeting molecules attached to and carrying diagnostic or radiotherapeutic molecules to abnormal cells.
Tobias Schaeffter PhD, Principal Scientist, Philips Research Laboratories, Hamburg, Arne Hengerer PhD, Director molecular MR, Siemens Medical Solutions, Erlangen, and Andreas Briel PhD, Eisenherz project manager, Schering Research Laboratories, Berlin, describe...
Optical imaging stands on the threshold of a vast array of imaging uses, writes Professor Eric N C Milne MD FRCR FRCP, Professor Emeritus of Radiology and Medicine, University of California Irvine, and Director of Clinical Research, Imaging Diagnostic Systems Inc. `Presently, its greatest worth lies in higher sensitivity for the dense breast. It detects many more occult cancers than conventional…
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