RECENT NEWS

The Science Council has announced that David Wells CSci, Chief Executive of the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS), has been appointed as the new Chair of its Board of Trustees. David, who has been a trustee of the Science Council since 2022, will succeed Adam Donnan in September 2024.

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has launched its Biomek Echo One System, which aims to accelerate high-throughput genomic sample preparation workflows to deliver results faster.

Northern Ireland’s CoreLIMS programme has achieved another significant milestone by migrating the Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service (NIBTS) away from its 15-year-old laboratory information system and onto Clinisys WinPath.

Non-governmental organisation The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding that lays the foundation for accelerating innovation and achieving equitable access to quality diagnostics for people globally.

Leica Biosystems and Navinci, a leader in developing innovative solutions for studying protein interactions, have announced a strategic collaboration to drive innovation in cancer patient care. This partnership enables automated in situ proximity ligation assays on the BOND RX Fully Automated Research Stainer.

A new Community Diagnostic Centre (CDC) has been completed by MTX at Clatterbridge Hospital on Merseyside using modern methods of construction to deliver the project faster, greener, safer and more cost effectively.

Following a decade of developments, and entries from more than 250 teams around the world, the £8m Longitude Prize on AMR has been awarded to the PA-100 AST System from Sysmex Astrego.

ALZpath, a developer of innovative diagnostic tools and solutions for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, has announced a strategic licence agreement with Roche for use of the ALZpath pTau217 antibody to develop and commercialise an Alzheimer’s disease diagnostic blood test that will be offered on the Roche Elecsys platform.

Cherwell has introduced a new Redipor Plastic Bottle prepared media range in response to a request from a large pharmaceutical company for support in meeting its sustainability targets.

The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) and its member company, HealthTrackRx, have filed a lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, challenging the decision to regulate professional laboratory testing services as medical devices.

Indica Labs has released updated versions of its life sciences software. The 4.0 versions of HALO, HALO AI, and HALO Link offer researchers and pathologists ease of use and performance, with even more opportunities to leverage advanced AI-powered image analysis in an open digital pathology ecosystem.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), together with public health agencies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, is investigating an increase in the number of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) cases in the UK in recent weeks.

Roche has announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for its cobas Liat SARS-CoV-2, Influenza A/B and RSV nucleic acid test, an automated multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay on the cobas Liat system.

The very first clinical installation of the Fina system for tissue block management took place 10 years ago at CHU Montpellier in France. The Fina system was developed as a solution to the problem of lost tissue samples in anatomic pathology (AP) laboratories. Thousands of tissue samples are lost in AP laboratories all over the world, and the impact can have devastating consequences for patients.

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has launched its new Valita Aggregation Pure assay, offering rapid, high-throughput protein aggregation detection and quantification, providing robust aggregation data in as little as 15 minutes.

On Monday 3 June, Synnovis - which provides pathology services to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College Hospitals NHS Trust - was the victim of a ransomware cyberattack. All of Synnovis’ IT systems were affected, resulting in interruptions to many of its pathology services.

bioMérieux inaugurated its new Rodolphe Mérieux Campus, in Bagno a Ripoli, Italy during May. The site includes a new R&D centre focusing on the fight against antimicrobial resistance, representing an investment of €9 million.

A new type of blood test can predict the recurrence of breast cancer in high-risk patients, months or even years before they relapse, research has shown. A team from The Institute of Cancer Research, London, used an ultra-sensitive liquid biopsy to detect the presence of tiny amounts of cancer DNA left in the body following treatment for early breast cancer.

A new Oxera report has found that the NHS benefits by up to £571 million annually in bowel cancer care alone thanks to biomedical scientists, active in 95% of patient pathways, the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS) has announced.

DELFI Diagnostics, a developer of blood-based AI tests that deliver a new way to enhance cancer detection, has announced the publication of a study examining the potential of its blood-based cancer screening, ‘Clinical validation of a cell-free DNA fragmentome assay for augmentation of lung cancer early detection’.