Move over, lab-on-a-chip and lab-on-paper. There’s a new diagnostic technology in research labs that is gaining credibility. It is called lab-on-skin technology and some scientists are quite excited about how it might be used for a variety of clinical purposes. A recent story published in ACS Nano titled, “Lab-on-Skin: A Review of Flexible and Stretchable Electronics for Wearable Health…
A new marker that could be used to diagnose fatal breast cancer up to one year ahead of current methods has been identified in a study led by UCL. The study found that changes detected in a part of DNA which the researches named EFC#93 could suggest early signs of deadly breast cancer. Importantly, these abnormal patterns are present in blood serum before the cancer becomes detectable in the…
Providing insights into new cardiac testing methods, Professor Stefan Holdenrieder, Director of the Institute of Laboratory Medicine at Munich’s German Heart Centre, explained why biomarkers are a game changer in diagnostics.
BBI Solutions (BBI), immunoassay developer and reagent supplier, acquired Maine Biotechnology Services Inc. (MBS) in July 2017, adding antibody development to the firm’s end to end assay development services. This also strengthens BBI’s reagents antibodies portfolio, providing a wide range of high quality biomarkers for infectious disease.
Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a peptide that could lead to the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The discovery, published in Nature Communications, may also provide a means of homing drugs to diseased areas of the brain to treat AD, Parkinson’s disease, as well as glioblastoma, brain injuries and stroke. “Our goal was to…
21st century challenges are multitudinous for all. Ageing populations, a changing disease burden; increasing obesity with associated morbidities – Type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease; climate change pressures and more. Any new build plan demands a low carbon footprint; respect for the environment is paramount. To capture all those elements, the plan to regenerate a previously 10…
Until now, familial breast cancer has only partly been linkable to genetic risk markers. In a worldwide joint effort, researchers have now identified further genetic variants that affect the risk for breast cancer. The study, which was conducted with participation of researchers from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Heidelberg University Hospital, has now been published in Nature.…
Early-stage colon cancer patients could benefit in the future from specific genetic tests that forecast their prognosis and help them make the right decision regarding chemotherapy.
In a study well-timed for summer, vision scientists have found that eye freckles, dark spots on the colored part of the eye (iris), are more frequently found in people with higher lifetime exposure to sunlight. While not malignant, eye freckles could indicate the presence or risk of sunlight-triggered eye diseases like cataract or macular degeneration.
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.
A Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center study, led by epidemiologist Dr. Parveen Bhatti, found that night shift work is associated with reduced ability to repair DNA lesions. Over time, DNA damage that is not repaired will cause mutations that can lead to cancer.
Ares Genetics GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Curetis GmbH and a developer of pioneering solutions for the detection of genetic resistances in pathogens, announced that the project "GEAR - Predicting Antibiotic Resistances with Genetic Data" has been awarded in the competition "Landmarks in the Land of Ideas".
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.
For almost three quarters of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients in Europe it is too late for curative treatment because the disease is often only diagnosed at a very advanced stage. Interviewed Professor Guido Gerken MD, Director of the Department for Gastroenterology and Hepatology at University Hospital Essen, about improved and timelier diagnostic capabilities that have already been…
Glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness worldwide, most often is diagnosed during a routine eye exam. Over time, elevated pressure inside the eye damages the optic nerve, leading to vision loss. Unfortunately, there’s no way to accurately predict which patients might lose vision most rapidly. Now, studying mice, rats and fluid removed from the eyes of patients with glaucoma, researchers at…
The one-size-fits-all approach to early stage breast cancer creates a paradox: Millions of dollars are spent on unnecessary surgeries and radiation to treat women with low-risk ‘in situ’ lesions, an estimated 85% of which would never progress to invasive cancers. Meanwhile, the standard conservative treatment is insufficient for many early-stage tumors that have progressed past the in situ…
About six years ago, liquid biopsy appeared on the diagnostic lab stage. Last December, a seminar offered by Agena Bioscience in Frankfurt, Germany, was set to explore the enormous potential of this new technique for oncology.
Methyl labels in the DNA regulate the activity of our genes and, thus, have a great influence on health and disease. Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and from the Saarland cancer registry have now revealed that an altered methylation status at only ten specific sites in the genome can indicate that mortality is increased by up to seven times. Smoking has a particularly…
Our knowledge of causes and mechanisms of current and future diseases is on ice – not the perpetual ice of the polar caps but artificial ice. It is stored in biobanks at -80 to -160 °C.
To treat or not to treat? That is the question researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) hope to answer with a new advance that could help doctors and their cancer patients decide if a particular therapy would be worth pursuing.
People with high levels of four biomarkers in the blood may be more likely to develop a stroke than people with low levels of the biomarkers, according to a study published in the August 24, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
It’s well known that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the UK and worldwide. In the UK it is responsible for more than 73,000 deaths annually, affecting 1 in 6 men and 1 in 10 women. With the emergence of such startling statistics, this begs the question, why do routine cholesterol tests still rely on the basic biomarkers high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density…
As part of a national, joint research project in cooperation with Chronix Biomedical (San Jose, CA/USA/Göttingen/Germany), Professor Michael Oellerich MD is on new biomarkers in organ transplantation, aiming to develop personalised immunosuppression for patients. This also entails the development of molecular test procedures, among others for the early detection of rejection. The keyword here is…
When a woman is diagnosed with the earliest stage of breast cancer, how aggressive should her treatment be? Will the non-invasive cancer become invasive? Or is it a slow-growing variety that will likely never be harmful? Researchers at the University of Michigan developed a new technology that can identify aggressive forms of ductal carcinoma in situ, or stage 0 breast cancer, from non-aggressive…
Harnessing the potential of digital pathology is taking research into new and more efficient biomarkers to a new level. By combining strategic planning with the latest digital pathology technology, high quality tissue microarrays for biomarker research are being produced.