Within 15 years effective antibiotics will run out and, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, a world in which common infections and minor injuries can kill is a very real possibility for the 21st Century. Geoff Sussman, one of the world’s foremost wound experts has warned that antibiotic resistance is posing the biggest single threat to global health. Report: Mark Nicholls
Researchers at Columbia University have reported a new approach to visualize glucose uptake activity in single living cells by light microscopy with minimum disturbance.
Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute have uncovered a new mechanism for the regulation of blood pressure. Published in Molecular Cell, the study links events at the single-cell level to a system-level effect, showing that blood pressure can drop dramatically if the protein ERAP1 is released from cells and enters the blood stream.
For over one hundred years, scientists have debated the question of the origins of the lymphatic system – a parallel system to the blood vessels that serves as a conduit for everything from immune cells to fat molecules to cancer cells. This issue has now been resolved by Dr. Karina Yaniv of Weizmann Institute’s Biological Regulation Department. In a study reported in Nature, she and her team…
Chemists at Caltech have developed a new sensitive technique capable of detecting colorectal cancer in tissue samples—a method that could one day be used in clinical settings for the early diagnosis of colorectal cancer.
Pathology is the gold standard of prostate diagnostics. Whilst the radiologist makes interpretations based on shadows and grey scale values visible on an image, the pathologist has the ‘fait accompli’ under the microscope. Professor Glen Kristiansen, Director at the Institute for Pathology at the University Hospital Bonn, explains why image-guided biopsies also make sense from the…
American Society of Human Genetics issues recommendations on age-appropriate genetic testing in children and adolescents.
Brain lesions in children can be especially challenging to diagnose, according to a report in the journal Frontiers in Neurology by a multidisciplinary team of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine physicians. Lesions include tumors, abnormal blood vessel formations, and abscesses and inflammation due to infections.
A growing number of clinical tests are being delivered in community hospitals with more patients receiving quicker, accurate diagnoses closer to home, without stays in acute hospital beds. Professor Daniel Lasserson, an Associate Professor in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at Oxford University, shares the opinion that using point-of-caretesting (POCT) to facilitate high…
Digitizing pathology is not just a transformation of technology, the major change and benefits lies in the change to a more efficient workflow – enabled by the new technology.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center have discovered a molecular mechanism that connects breast tissue stiffness to tumor metastasis and poor prognosis. The study may inspire new approaches to predicting patient outcomes and halting tumor metastasis.
A group of passengers who thought they were going to die when their plane ran out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean in August, 2001 have had their brains scanned while recalling the terrifying moments to help science better understand trauma memories and how they are processed in the brain.
This year’s German medical diagnostics manufacturers association (Verband der deutschen Diagnostica-Hersteller = VDGH) congress, focused on diabetes. The panel discussion that closed the evening session revealed unanimous support for the adoption of a German national diabetes plan. Report: Bettina Döbereiner
Blood sampling via intravenous catheters frequently occurs because patients in intensive care already have intravenous catheters in place, and patients admitted to accident and emergency units are immediately set up with intravenous catheters – providing easy access to blood.
Bringing liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) testing into clinical laboratories has been a slow process but continues to show promise to help improve patient care. The medical device industry is on the edge of fundamental breakthroughs that can help drive the adoption into more mainstream clinical laboratories. We recently sat down with Dr Bori Shushan, Mass Spectrometry…
When trialled in Swansea, Wales, Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation – Time of Flight (MALDI-TOF) demonstrated sufficient advantages over conventional methods to be introduced into routine practice.
About 6-8% of Spanish patients will develop an infection during or after a hospital stay. Can these infections be avoided? How is Spain facing up to the challenge? Dr Juan Pablo Horcajada, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Hospital del Mar, Barcelona, and spokesperson of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), assessed the situation and…
This article discusses examples of applications of genetic analyses in coagulation disorders and haematological and oncological diseases. Professor Christine Mannhalter highlights the impact changes have on the occurrence and severity of diseases and their influence on therapy response. Report: Christine Mannhalter
Agendia co-founder and Chief Research Officer, Laura van't Veer, Ph.D., has won the European Inventor Award in the SME category. The European Inventor Award is a prestigious innovation award presented by the European Patent Office, with only 15 inventors nominated in a total of five categories worldwide.
EuroHeartCare is the official annual meeting of the Council on Cardiovascular Nursing and Allied Professions (CCNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The 2015 meeting is held 14 to 15 June in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in collaboration with the Croatian Association of Cardiology Nurses.
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…
21-25 June 2015 - Palais des Congrès of Paris, France Exceptionally this year, the 21st IFCC EFLM Congress with of the 60th Journées Internationales de Biologie (JIB) will be held together to form a very special event.
A new way of rapidly identifying bacteria, which requires a slight modification to a simple microscope, may change the way doctors approach treatment for patients who develop potentially deadly infections and may also help the food industry screen against contamination with harmful pathogens, according to researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon,…
Abbott's i-STAT® 1 Wireless System is now available for use in hospitals, emergency rooms, physicians' offices and other health care environments in Europe and regions that recognize CE Mark. A portable, handheld blood analyzer, the i-STAT® uses two to three drops of a person's blood to perform common tests right at the bedside. By providing and transmitting test results within minutes to a…
The time needed to genetically sequence the bacteria causing tuberculosis (Mtb) from patient samples has been reduced from weeks to days using a new technique developed by a team at University College London (UCL). This could help health service providers to better treat disease, control transmission of this infection, and monitor outbreaks.
