News • Sepsis
New technology could prevent a leading cause of death
What do Casey Kasem, Christopher Reeve and Muhammad Ali have in common? They all died of sepsis: a rapid, potentially deadly reaction that affects millions each year.
Article • Challenging process
Embracing digitised pathology
Investing in equipment and systems, training personnel and picking the right manufacturer to deliver a system that meets a hospital’s needs are key factors, according to Dr Peter Riegman, Head of Erasmus MC Tissue Bank at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam.
Article • Denmark
Successful digital pathology
Advanced computer software underpins a service - coupled with a countrywide database, which enables Denmark’s pathologists to optimise the assessment of patients’ specimens.In turn, the digitisation of the system in recent years has led to significant improvements in pathology services, delivering greater efficiency and advances in patient safety.
Article • Detecting bladder tumours
Photodynamic diagnosis locates the smallest tumours
Bladder cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy involving the urinary system and the ninth most common malignancy worldwide.
Article • Critically ill adults
CPOCTs in development
Waiting for test results can be a minor inconvenience for some patients, but for those who are critically ill, timing matters. At the CPOCT International Symposium in Copenhagen (21-24 September) Dr Craig Lilly, a professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts spoke about the point-of-care testing market, outlining currently available testing for critically ill adults, and also under…
Article • Opinion
The value of point-of-care
Some significant changes in the European hospital sector have occurred over the last 20 years. ‘The necessity to contain the exploding costs in particular has led to a reduction in the number of hospitals and hospital beds, and staffing levels have also been affected by the many cost cutting measures. This has not been without its consequences, as we now know,’ writes Ludwig F Rutten.
Article • Frontline medical advances
Virology is now a key discipline
Virology is fast emerging as a key discipline within modern healthcare against a backdrop of a shifting global demographic and the impact of climate change.
News • Diabetes
Friendly Fire in the Pancreas
n type 1 diabetes, the body attacks its own insulin-producing cells. Scientists at Helmholtz Zentrum München, partner in the German Center for Diabetes Research, and their colleagues at Technical University of Munich have now reported in the journal ‘PNAS’ about a mechanism used by the immune system to prepare for this attack. They were able to inhibit this process through targeted…
News • Malaria
UK and France see highest number of imported cases
An international study, led by the University of Southampton, shows the UK and France experience the highest number of malaria cases imported from other countries.
Article • Legislation
IVDs under the microscope
European regulators have turned the world of in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) upside down with new legislation that will come into effect at the end of this year. The new EU legislation gives manufacturers five years to meet strict standards. That may not be enough time.
Article • Politics
Antimicrobial resistance: reaching out to the UN
A global spotlight has at last highlighted the truly acute problem of antimicrobial resistance.
Article • Infections
Carbapenem resistant strains
The increasing numbers of bacteria resistant to the newer generations of antibiotics is a public health problem on a global scale. Bacteria have an extraordinary capacity for adaptation, mutating permanently to overcome the action of our increasingly impotent antimicrobial armamentarium. A situation further aggravated by the use of the powerful ‘large spectrum’ antibiotics, creating further…
Sponsored • Visionary thinking.
JADAK: redefining data collection within the healthcare market
From barcode scanning, RFID and medical machine vision to chart recorders, thermal printers and spectroscopy products, JADAK designs and manufactures embedded solutions that help customers solve unique inspection, tracking, scanning and documenting challenges.
News • Chronic Viral Infection
Inflammation triggers unsustainable immune response
Scientists at the University of Basel discovered a fundamental new mechanism explaining the inadequate immune defense against chronic viral infection. These results may open up new avenues for vaccine development.
Diabetic biomarker test successfully verified
EKF Diagnostics announces that its newly introduced Glycated Serum Protein (GSP) LiquiColor® diabetic biomarker test has been verified for use on the Siemens Vista chemistry analyzer. In a scientific poster published by scientists at the Memorial Healthcare System, Hollywood, USA [1], it was demonstrated that EKF’s GSP assay enhances the versatility of the Vista system for the specialized…
News • Fatal Heart Condition
Dangerous drug interactions uncovered with data science
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and the Data Science Institute at Columbia University have uncovered a potentially dangerous drug interaction using data science.
News • memristor
First demonstration of brain-inspired device to power artificial systems
New research, led by the University of Southampton, has demonstrated that a nanoscale device, called a memristor, could be used to power artificial systems that can mimic the human brain.
News • Neurodegenerative diseases
Brain cell ‘executioner’ identified
Despite their different triggers, the same molecular chain of events appears to be responsible for brain cell death from strokes, injuries and even such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer's. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they have pinpointed the protein at the end of that chain of events, one that delivers the fatal strike by carving up a cell's DNA. The find, they say, potentially…
BioLOGICAL Customer Magazine
‘BioLogical’ is the name of the new customer magazine by Greiner Bio-One. It will be published biannually and provide you with the latest findings on current topics and information about relevant innovative product developments – content designed specifically to appeal to medical, laboratory researcher or academic professionals.
News • Oncology
Nanoparticle creates ‘wave of destruction’ in cancer cells
Nanoparticles known as Cornell dots, or C dots, have shown great promise as a therapeutic tool in the detection and treatment of cancer. Now, the ultrasmall particles – developed more than a dozen years ago by Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering at Cornell University – have shown they can do something even better: kill cancer cells without attaching a cytotoxic drug.
Artificial blood vessels can grow with the recipient
In a groundbreaking new study led by University of Minnesota biomedical engineers, artificial blood vessels bioengineered in the lab and implanted in young lambs are capable of growth within the recipient. If confirmed in humans, these new vessel grafts would prevent the need for repeated surgeries in some children with congenital heart defects.
News • Microscopy
Watching molecular machines at work
When one cell divides into two - that is how all forms of life are propagated - the newly born daughter cells have to be equipped with everything they will need in their tiny lives. Most important of all is that they inherit a complete copy of the genetic information from their mother cell. If this is not the case because a wrong number of chromosomes – on which the genetic information is…
News • Quality Control
Acusera Live Online Version 1.6
We are delighted to announce the launch of Acusera 24.7 Live Online Version 1.6, now featuring the automatic calculation of Measurement Uncertainty, Total Error and Sigma Metrics as part of our ongoing growth and development.
Sponsored • Fully automated
RX Modena – Welcome to the Modena Era
The newest addition to the RX series, the RX modena, is a high volume, fully automated clinical chemistry analyser that promises to revolutionise your laboratory and transform diagnostics.
News • For tissue engineering
Technique generates human neural stem cells
Tufts University researchers have discovered a new technique for generating rapidly-differentiating human neural stem cells for use in a variety of tissue engineering applications, including a three-dimensional model of the human brain, according to a paper published in Stem Cell Reports. The work could pave the way for experiments that engineer other innervated tissues, such as the skin and…
