454 Life Sciences, a Roche company, announced that a team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have characterized the human gut microbiome by sequencing the microbial communities of adult twins and their mothers with the Genome Sequencer FLX System.
Founded in 1991 in Shenzhen, China, the firm Mindray aims to deliver high-quality competitively priced medical devices to make healthcare accessible and affordable worldwide.
With the acquisition of Ventara Medical Systems, Roche hopes to move several steps further forward in their goal for personalised medicine that improves diagnostics and ultimately, clinical outcomes.
PCR plays a major part in medical diagnostics. From a few drops of blood, a tissue sample or a bacterial colony will be sufficient to confirm the presence of specific DNA. This approach relies, however, on a prior understanding of the mechanisms underlying the condition e.g. the causative organism in a viral disease. Standard primers are currently available for many pathogenic organisms which is…
Roche and Swisslab GmbH, Berlin announced yesterday that Roche has acquired all the shares in Swisslab. Swisslab is the leading provider of Laboratory Information Systems (LIS) in Germany. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2009.
Advanced TC™ cell culture products have an innovative polymer modification which forms a special surface that optimises cultivation of fastidious cells and facilitates complex experimental approaches.
AFFiRiS GmbH has granted GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals S.A. (GSK) exclusive rights to develop and commercialise its Alzheimer's disease vaccine candidates. Two are currently in Phase I clinical development, and others are in preclinical development.
Medical products have to fulfil exacting requirements. That is why surface properties are increasingly analysed with optical 3D measurement systems.
Is there a case of drug abuse ore not? In case of an emergency physicians need a quick answer to decide about the further treatment. The Dräger DrugTest 5000 could deliver the information of up to six different drug classes within minutes.
The results of the recent Multi-Centre Celiac Serology Study undertaken to define the optimal serological screening approach to Celiac Disease clearly showed that dual or combined isotype (IgA+IgG) transglutaminase screening can be advocated as a sensitive and specific alternative to endomysial antibody testing in the assessment of Celiac Disease.
The US firm Inverness Medical has launched a new rapid test as an in vitro diagnostic aid for Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD).
The vital, routine task of plate streaking to isolate a pure culture is inefficient and time-consuming, significantly slowing microbiologists' responses.
Lab Tests Online, an online encyclopaedia on laboratory testing and related conditions, is expanding to include eight languages.
There is now new hope for women around the world, with the launch of an early detection test for ovarian cancer, according to HealthLinx Limited. The test, developed in Melbourne by HealthLinx scientists in collaboration with ARL Pathology, is called the OvPlex™ Panel and works by identifying whether five biomarkers (proteins) are present in a blood sample.
A new lab-on-chip system, the ivD-platform, which quickly determines, on site, the contents and parameters of biological samples, such as blood or saliva, with the help of immunoassay or DNA analysis, was presented at Biotechnica this autumn.
The machine 'qViro' which is the size of a coffee grinder will make virus counting much cheaper than traditional virus counting technology. The revolutionary new invention offers the potential to quickly muster and count the number of viruses in a sample in minutes - it is a portable, desktop instrument, powered from the USB drive of a computer - current competitors are the size of washing…
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.
Olympus will present the latest member of its clinical chemistry analyser family at Medica.
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.
Siemens new Clinitek Micro-albumin 9 Urinalysis Strip is now available in Europe. The strips, which can be used on the firm's Clinitek Status analyser, or the Clinitek Advantus analyser, provide nine tests to detect and monitor kidney disease.
Lab21 is to expand its portfolio of genetic tests for inherited cardiac syndromes.
London and Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical research firm Domainex Ltd has received a European patent for its Combinatorial Domain Hunting (CDH) Technology, which enables the cloning and expression of recombinant proteins, or parts of proteins (domains), from challenging molecular targets.
Siemens Healthcare has opened a new research centre in Cologne, where around 40 employees are developing new diagnostic tests to describe the molecular characteristics of breast cancer cells, to help physicians to select individual therapy.
Currently, early detection of Prostate Cancer depends on an abnormal digital rectal examination and an elevated prostate-specific-antigen (PSA) level requiring a prostate biopsy, often associated with anxiety, discomfort, complications, and heavy expenses. The prostate-cancer-gene-3 (PCA3) test is a new PCa gene-based marker carried out with a urine sample.
The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will fund a new project to develop four computer-based decision-tools that will help clinicians and patients answering questions like: When to use genetic tests? How to deal with the results? Or which treatment could be the best?