Laboratory

Article • Paradigm shift for point-of-Care-Testing

IT security of POCT devices – not everything is picture-perfect

Until recently, the major challenges surrounding Point-of-Care-testing (POCT) concerned the quality of the results and improving the reagents and the procedures in order to optimise patient care. In the modern clinical environment, however, IT security of POCT devices is becoming increasingly important, in Germany also due to new industry-specific safety standards under the Act on the Federal…

News • The Art of Science

Olympus announced Global Image of the Year Award Winners

Olympus has announced the winners of its first Global Image of the Year Life Science Light Microscopy Award, a competition that recognizes the best in life science imaging worldwide.

Article • Breath analysis to aid diagnoses

Breathomics: far more than hot air

In diagnostics, it sometimes makes sense to follow your nose. During the Labmed Forum at Medica, Dr Beniam Ghebremedhin and Dr Simona Cristescu discussed the diagnostic potential of breathomics – the analysis of a patient’s exhaled air for disease indicators.

News • Volunteering against the coronavirus

Scientists on Standby portal to support COVID-19 testing recruitment

Scientists on Standby has been rapidly conceptualised and launched in response to the COVID-19 crisis and in anticipation of the increasing pressure on UK diagnostic testing laboratories and facilities in the coming weeks and months. The portal enables scientists with relevant skills and experience to volunteer their time, expertise and support for COVID-19 screening and testing.

News • IgM/IgG identification

Coronavirus antibody test in development

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Beckman Coulter announced that it is developing assays to identify IgM and IgG antibodies to the coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2. The assays will be designed for use on any of its high-throughput Access family of immunoassay systems, including the Access 2 and DxI series installed globally. Research has shown that after infection with SARS-CoV-2, viral…

News • COVID-19 diagnostics

Corona 'pool testing' increases worldwide capacities many times over

Researchers at the German Red Cross Blood Donor Service in Frankfurt headed by Professor Erhard Seifried, and the Institute for Medical Virology at the University Hospital Frankfurt at Goethe University headed by Professor Sandra Ciesek succeeded in developing a procedure that makes it possible to immediately and dramatically increase worldwide testing capacities for detecting SARS-CoV-2.

News • Oncology breakthrough

Blood test detects 50+ cancer types, often before symptoms show

Researchers have developed the first blood test that can accurately detect more than 50 types of cancer and identify in which tissue the cancer originated, often before there are any clinical signs or symptoms of the disease. In a paper published in the leading cancer journal Annals of Oncology, the researchers show that the test, which could eventually be used in national cancer screening…

News • Acetone sensors

3D printing sensors for diabetes breath tests

The production of highly sensitive sensors is a complex process: it requires many different steps and the almost dust-free environment of special cleanrooms. A research team from Materials Science at Kiel University (CAU) and from Biomedical Engineering at the Technical University of Moldova has now developed a procedure to produce extremely sensitive and energy-efficient sensors using 3D…

News • Microbiological big data analysis

Building a 'Microbiome Search Engine'

Big data makes big promises when it comes to providing insights into human behavior and health. The problem is how to harness the information it provides in an efficient manner. An international team of researchers has proposed a microbiome search-based method, via Microbiome Search Engine (MSE), to analyze the wealth of available health data to detect and diagnose human diseases. They published…

News • Coronavirus disease diagnostics

Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 test

French in vitro diagnostics company bioMérieux announced that its subsidiary, BioFire Defense, has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of its BioFire COVID-19 test for use in CLIA moderate and high complexity clinical laboratories to detect the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The test detects SARS-CoV-2 in approximately 45 minutes from a…

News • COVID-19 status

Whole genome sequencing to map coronavirus spread

The Government and the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser have backed the UK’s leading clinicians and scientists to map how COVID-19 spreads and behaves by using whole genome sequencing. Through a £20 million investment, the consortium will look for breakthroughs that help the UK respond to this and future pandemics, and save lives. COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium - comprised of the NHS, Public…

Empowering Reprocessing Staff: Improving Patient Safety

Human factor aspects of reprocessing can never be completely avoided yet staff can be empowered to reduce the risk of infection. This was an important conclusion established at a multidisciplinary expert panel held at Pentax Medical’s R&D Center, discussing infection risk mitigation in endoscopy. This panel of experts, consisting of physicians, nurses, microbiologists, infection control…

News • RT-PCR for COVID-19

First of 3 diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus available

Biotechnology company bioMérieux, a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics, is announcing the forthcoming launch of 3 different tests to address the COVID-19 epidemic and to meet the different needs of physicians and health authorities in the fight against this emerging infectious disease. bioMérieux has finalized the development of the SARS-CoV-2 R-Gene test. This real-time PCR test…

News • Improved grip and comfort

New cap design for capillary blood collection tubes

The MiniCollect Capillary Blood Collection System launched by Greiner Bio-One in 2016, has an improved cap on all its blood collection tubes. The new version, designed for easier opening, has an increased number of ridges that are also deeper to improve grip and user comfort. The cap rim also overlaps the top of the tube to augment grip and ease opening. The capillary blood collection tubes offer…

News • Pandemic prevention

German lab developed coronavirus detection method

Investigators at Hannover Medical School (MHH) in Germany have developed a molecular assay for detecting the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (previously 2019-nCoV) on the automated Panther Fusion system by Hologic. The preclinical assay is described online in the Journal of Clinical Virology. “Rapid diagnosis is critical to combatting the spread of pandemics, and the Panther Fusion system is well…

Article • Lab technician shortage

Addressing the critical lack of skilled lab workers

The UK and Europe are facing a serious lab skills shortage over the next decade with medical laboratories among the worst affected. An ageing population and skilled operators retiring without being replaced by a new generation of lab technicians is at the core of a critical lack of skilled lab workers, with it taking 5-10 years for a technician to become fully competent and an expert in their…

Article • On the way to diagnostic mainstream

Liquid biopsy to advance cancer diagnosis

Liquid biopsy offers a new dimension to detection and stratification of cancer – yet the technique also faces hurdles in becoming a mainstream diagnostic approach for more personalised treatments. A critical challenge lies in identifying the extremely low concentrations of the bio-analytes of CTC (circulating tumour cells), ctDNA (circulating tumour DNA) and exosomes in the blood.

News • Triple-negative forms impeded

Scientists stop breast cancer cells from spreading in the lab

Biologists have discovered a way to stop cells from one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer spreading in the lab. The study points towards new avenues of research to combat the devastating disease. The results of the study of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer by the team from the Universities of Manchester, Glasgow and Sheffield and funded by Breast Cancer Now are published in Oncogene.…

News • Development of a highly sensitive analytical workflow

Collaboration for infectious disease diagnosis and patient monitoring

Thermo Fisher Scientific and NanoPin Technologies, Inc. have entered into a collaborative relationship to advance blood-based infectious disease detection technology through the development of highly sensitive liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based workflows. Through the detection of disease-related antigens directly from patient blood samples, NanoPin's unique diagnostic platform…

News • Lab equipment

New high-precision digital reagent dispensers launched at SLAS 2020

Scientists working across drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, bioanalytical, pre-clinical and clinical trial applications can now access a range of digital reagent dispensers designed to enable assay miniaturization, boost productivity and improve accuracy of results. Offering enhanced dispensing precision, the new systems use ten times less reagent compared to manual pipetting workflows,…

Video • New virus 2019-nCoV

Scientists grow Wuhan coronavirus in the lab

Scientists from The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne have successfully grown the Wuhan coronavirus (also known as SARS-CoV-2) from a patient sample, which will provide expert international laboratories with crucial information to help combat the virus. This is the first time the virus has been grown in cell culture outside of China. The Royal Melbourne Hospital’s…

Article • Lab advances against doping

A powerful tool for sports drug testing

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…

Fully-automated DPD deficiency testing

Each year almost 80,000 new patients in France alone receive fluoropyrimidines, a group of anti-cancer drugs including 5-FU which is normally administered intravenously to treat digestive, breast and head and neck cancer. However, fluoropyrimidines-based chemotherapies can cause severe toxicities (incidence at around 20%) and sometimes lethal toxicity (incidence between 0.1 and 1%) with part of…

News • Sprue POCT

Celiac disease: faster detection through new method

Researchers from the University of Helsinki developed a novel diagnostic method for the rapid on-site measurement of antibodies from patient samples. Now they have applied this new method for the diagnostics of celiac disease, with promising results. Point-of-care (POC) testing is a rapidly growing sector, bringing medical testing from central laboratories to where the patient is receiving care.…

News • Direct-from-blood diagnostic

T2Resistance Panel receives CE mark

T2 Biosystems, Inc., a leader in the development and commercialization of medical diagnostic products, and CARB-X, a global non-profit partnership dedicated to accelerating R&D innovation to address the rising global threat of drug-resistant bacteria, announced the granting of a CE mark to the T2Resistance Panel. With the CE mark, T2 Biosystems has met the requirements of the In-Vitro…

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