RECENT NEWS

Cherwell Laboratories, a specialist in cleanroom microbiology solutions, has appointed Thomas Parkhill as Microbiology Sales Specialist. Thomas will work closely with new and existing customers across the UK to understand and help Cherwell satisfy its customers’ future environmental monitoring and process validation needs.

Pinpoint Scientific has secured investment to aid the development of its ImpactAir range of environmental monitoring solutions. Cherwell Laboratories and Development Bank of Wales (DBW) have both invested in Pinpoint and taken a minority share in the business. The investment not only secures jobs in South Wales, a key objective of DBW, but also allows the business to bring to the market some exciting new products within the ImpactAir range. Cherwell is an existing distributor of ImpactAir products in the UK, and, has also taken a seat on the Pinpoint board to help with business strategy and planning.

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and IncellDx have announced a partnership which combines the latest in molecular testing with the precision of high-throughput flow cytometry. IncellDx has four new cancer detection reagents which were developed on Beckman Coulter’s instruments. The two companies will work in partnership to create awareness of the assays on the cytometry platform for customers in Europe.

Cirdan has been awarded a contract by Eurofins Pathology for a new-generation laboratory information system (LIS). Eurofins Pathology is part of the wider Eurofins Scientific Group, a global leader in life sciences testing, with a presence in 47 countries, providing a unique range of analytical testing services.

Now in its sixth year, the Practical and Clinical Microbiology of Anaerobes course will be held again in 2020 – on 18–19 June in Cardiff. It is a two-day residential course delivered by the UK Anaerobe Reference Unit, Public Health Wales. The course provides a refresher in culturing, isolating and identifying clinically important anaerobes, and a look at the latest technologies and techniques.

Until recently, visitors to the Science Museum in London’s South Kensington would have struggled to find very much about the science of medicine. This all changed on 16 November 2019 when Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries opened to the public. The culmination of eight years of planning and development, they are the world’s largest medicine galleries, occupying 3000 square metres, an area large enough to take 1500 hospital beds.

The latest edition of The Biomedical Science Industry Handbook is now available, both in print and digital format (see link at the end of this feature), providing concise yet comprehensive information on the full range of products and services across the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) industry spectrum, from point -of-care testing (POCT) to the very latest advances in molecular biology.

Mobidiag, a molecular diagnostics company with complementary platforms that address antimicrobial resistance and other areas of unmet diagnostic need, has announced exclusive agreements with international partners for the distribution of its Amplidiag and Novodiag products in Europe and the Middle East.

Nonacus, a UK-based precision medicine company and manufacturer of ultra-sensitive next-generation sequencing (NGS) products, has announced the launch of ExomeCG, a new product to simplify the generation and interpretation of molecular and cytogenomic data.

Sphere Fluidics and Peak Analysis and Automation (PAA) have announced the optimisation of the Cyto-Mine Single Cell Analysis System through integration with PAA’s automated plate handler, S-LAB. The addition of S-LAB to the Cyto-Mine provides researchers with a further streamlined solution for single-cell analysis.

As part of National Pathology Week, G2 Speech and LogicNets forged a new partnership. The new development is set to extend the benefits of G2 Speech’s existing clinical workflow management solution with the intelligence platform provided by LogicNets, offering clinical decision support (CDS) to pathologists and other healthcare professionals across the UK and Ireland.

Pipette.com is an independent calibration facility with a passion for empowering scientific discovery. It is dedicated to providing the best solutions possible for customers while maintaining effective communication.

On International Pathology Day, Leica Biosystems announced the launch of The Future of Pathology – the catalyst for a conversation that brings together pathologists, hospital administrators and key stakeholders from across the care continuum to discuss the common goal of improving cancer diagnostics, today and into the future.

The National Collection of Type Cultures (NCTC) is one of the longest established collections of microorganisms in the world; its cultures reflect the history of clinical bacterial infections from the end of the 19th century to the present day. Set up in 1920 to “provide a trustworthy source of authentic bacteria for use in scientific studies”, the remit for NCTC has remained essentially unchanged, as Julie Russell explains.

Syrris has upgraded the touchscreen firmware for its popular Atlas HD jacketed reactor systems to offer many of the advanced automation features previously only available using the system’s PC-based control software. These enhanced automation options – such as pH-controlled and temperature-dependent dosing – add to the system’s existing functionality to offer even greater flexibility in protocol design.

Earlier this year, Pathology in Practice editor Brian Nation CSci FIBMS was awarded Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS) Life Membership. The presentation was made by Institute President Alison Geddes at a ceremony held during the Biomedical Science Congress event in September.

PromoCell, a manufacturer of human primary cells and cell culture products, now offers cell disease models covering a wide range of diseases including diabetes (type 1 and 2), respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, as well as cardiomyopathy. Relevant models enable experiments under physiological conditions and are key to developing new therapies for chronic diseases. With its greater range of cell disease models, PromoCell underlines its role as a dedicated supporter of scientific research and innovation.

HORIBA UK, Medical showcased its approach to ‘hub and spoke’ laboratories at the IBMS Congress in September. On the stand was a wide range of instrumentation for central laboratory and near-patient use, and also a newly CE-marked benchtop instrument for rapid infectious disease detection.

Lab Innovations celebrated its eighth edition in October, trumping all records for the event. Attracting 3860 attendees, an impressive 24% increase on the previous year, this makes it the largest Lab Innovations to date. Over 160 exhibitors displayed a diverse and innovative product offering to visitors from more sectors than ever before, emphasising the event’s place as the UK’s largest annual trade exhibition dedicated to the entire laboratory industry.

The 35th British Society for Microbial Technology (BSMT) Annual Scientific Conference will be held on Thursday 14 May 2020 at the RAF Museum, Hendon, entitled The Genomic and Molecular Revolution in Microbiology: In Technology We Trust (or do we?). The theme of the meeting is designed to explore just how much the molecular revolution in microbiology has been useful in improving patient care, and the organisers have a great line up of speakers already confirmed.