RECENT NEWS

Beckman Coulter Diagnostics has entered a partnership with Diazyme Laboratories that allows customers access to a procalcitonin (PCT) assay, an important marker for the detection and management of bacterial infections and sepsis. The high-quality, fully automated PCT assay is available for use with Beckman Coulter AU analysers (models 480, 680 and 5800).

The two major roles of the haemoglobinopathy laboratory are the recognition of clinically important variant haemoglobins and the accurate and precise quantification of haemoglobin A2 for the diagnosis of β-thalassaemia heterozygosity. Both can be met by capillary electrophoresis (CE), which is now regarded as a suitable technique for the diagnosis of β-thalassaemia and the detection of variant haemoglobins.

Biomed Online offers a well-established programme of M-level short courses for MSc, PG Dip, PGCert qualifications. These are fully supported by tutors over 12 weeks and cover specialist healthcare and quality management topics for the professional development of biomedical scientists and workplace practitioners.

Researchers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) have revealed the atomic structures of one of the two types of abnormal filament which leads to Alzheimer's disease. The researchers, whose study was published recently in the journal Nature, believe the structures uncovered could also suggest how tau protein may form different filaments in other neurodegenerative diseases.

Congress – in the UK the word means a large, formal meeting of delegates and representatives at which ideas are discussed and information is exchanged.

Lab Innovations will return for its sixth consecutive year on 1–2 November 2017 at the NEC, Birmingham. With the largest gathering of laboratory suppliers in the UK, this free-to-attend show has much to offer professionals across a wide range of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to food and drink.

University of Hertfordshire researchers have developed a new concept which could lead to the discovery of universal anti-influenza drugs. It is hoped that this new way of including more than 12,000 influenza virus gene sequences will ensure that predicted antivirals are effective against most influenza virus strains. The findings were published recently in the journal Virology.

Experts have repeatedly warned that medical science is on the cusp of a ‘post-antibiotic era’, where some infections could become untreatable. Now, scientists in the USA have re-engineered a new version of vancomycin in a bid to wipe out one of the world's most threatening microorganisms. The new antibiotic is designed to be ultra-tough and appears to be a thousand times more potent, according to research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA.

MediSieve, the company behind a revolutionary magnetic sieve that filters out malaria-infected cells directly from a patient’s bloodstream, is now developing new methods to combat leukaemia. Following the successful development of its magnetic filter device, which will soon move into clinical trials, MediSieve is now commencing research into the treatment of other conditions using magnetic particles to target specific disease-causing components in blood.

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) has made several advances in hybridisation-based target enrichment protocols that now enable researchers to prepare samples for sequencing in just one day. Researchers can now access the high-quality results of hybridisation-based targeted sequencing with a speed comparable to that of amplicon-based approaches.

Roche Diagnostics has been awarded a seven-year contract by Barts Health NHS Trust to transform its laboratory services across London. The investment, which follows a competitive tender process, will see laboratories at St Bartholomew's Hospital, The Royal London Hospital, Whipps Cross University Hospital and Newham University Hospital upgraded to benefit from the latest in advanced automation.

Diagnostic tests or associated pre-analytical steps are being performed increasing outside the confines of the medical laboratory on a point-of-care (POC) basis. Widespread though such POC testing (POCT) has become, the required governance, quality control and quality assessment is perhaps lagging behind technological application. It will be no surprise, therefore, that accreditation of these widespread services is high on the agenda, and those bodies providing external quality assessment services are sharpening the focus on this near-patient activity.

Mettler Toledo’s Rainin pipettes and TerraRack pipette tip racks are helping PhD students in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine at the University of Barcelona to study metabolic syndrome. Laia Oliva Lorenzo explained: “Our research involves the study of metabolic syndrome at the cellular, tissue and organism level, looking at the cellular metabolism – particularly adipocytes – of rats, and the effects of different diets and obesity. We analyse plasma and tissue samples, and carry out primary adipocyte culture and stromal cell tests.”

Royal Philips and LabPON, the first clinical laboratory to move to 100% histopathology digital diagnosis, plans to create a digital database of massive aggregated sets of annotated pathology images and big data, utilising Philips IntelliSite Pathology Solution. The database will provide pathologists with a wealth of clinical information for the development of image analytics algorithms for computational pathology and pathology education, while promoting research and discovery to develop new insights for disease assessment, including cancer.

Elkerliek Hospital in The Netherlands and Royal Philips have announced a collaboration to pioneer the use of point-of-care testing (POCT) in the hospital’s dedicated cardiac emergency department. As a key part of the collaboration, Philips’ CE-marked cardiac troponin I (cTnI) blood test for the rapid diagnosis of heart attack, which is based on the company’s Minicare I-20 handheld diagnostics platform, will be used to provide test results within 10 minutes using only a single fingerprick drop of blood.

To design the laboratory of the future you need pioneering and innovative thinkers and developers from research and industry. Scientists and businesses joined together for the smartLAB project to develop a vision of the laboratory of the future. The second edition of this fully functional model laboratory will be on display at LABVOLUTION with BIOTECHNICA, on 16–18 May.

EKF Diagnostics, a global in vitro diagnostics company, has announced that, in a recently published paper (Lenters-Westra E, English, E. Understanding the use of sigma metrics in hemoglobin A1c analysis. Clin Lab Med 2017; 37: 57–71.) its Quo-Test point-of-care (POC) haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) analyser has been confirmed as meeting International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) performance criteria. Using sigma-metrics data modelling, scientists from the European Reference Laboratory for Glycohemoglobin, demonstrated that Quo-Test easily met IFCC accepted quality targets of >2 sigma at 10% total allowable error (TAE) at 48 mmol/mol HbA1c. This is essential for the effective monitoring of glycaemic control in diabetes patients.

The Binding Site Group has entered a collaboration agreement with Mayo Clinic to develop a novel clinical laboratory test for the identification and accurate measurement of monoclonal proteins present in B-cell diseases. The two organisations want to improve the testing, diagnosis and monitoring of patients with multiple myeloma and related conditions.

Measurement uncertainty in the context of clinical laboratories is inextricably linked to imprecision, and therefore the assessment of this poorly understood factor is an increasing element of the accreditation process. In view of the need to provide some clarity, Pathology in Practice is running a series of articles written by Stephen MacDonald.

Last year the Francis Crick Institute moved into a brand new building in central London, bringing together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the largest biomedical research facility in Europe under a single roof. As the Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease, it is vital that it has very reliable and secure freezers to enable it to undertake its research effectively and safely.