CORONAVIRUS NEWS

A state-of-the-art NHS laboratory has been officially opened by one of the country’s best-known athletes in a ceremony at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead. The new £12 million facility will provide clinical testing to patients across Gateshead, Sunderland and South Tyneside, bringing world-class technology to hospitals and GPs across the region.

Renishaw recently reported on the use of its SEM-SCA interface at the Vibrational Spectroscopy Core Facility of the University of Sydney, a professional services unit that houses one of the largest concentrations of state-of-the-art Raman and FT-IR spectrometers in Australia.

Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics is set to showcase its next generation of chemistry and immunoassay systems for central laboratory testing at the IBMS Congress in Birmingham. Building on its heritage of high-throughput ‘automation ready’ analysers, theADVIA Chemistry XPT and ADVIA Centaur XPT Immunoassay systems providesignificant software and hardware enhancements to increase reliability and reduce operator hands on time.

Cepheid has updated its Xpert Carba-R test with the addition of two emerging carbapenemase genes, OXA-181 and OXA-232. The on-demand molecular test also detects and differentiates between the five most prevalent mechanisms of carbapenem resistance, namely KPC, NDM, VIM, IMP-1 and OXA-48.

Aplegen is a new face on the gel documentation market and has introduced Omega Lum W for multicolour R, G, B and chemiluminescence imaging. This small-footprint system breaks the mould of traditional heavy and cumbersome gel documentation systems by utilising innovative design and incorporating an integral tablet for control. This compact package sits neatly on any laboratory bench ready to image gels, Western blots or multiplexing multi-coloured blots at the click of a button.

InterSystems, the developer of the TrakCare unified healthcare information system and other software for connected care, will preview its laboratory business management system (LBMS) at the IBMS Biomedical Science Congress in Birmingham.

Scientists are adding new DNA to the cells of patients in a world-first treatment to attack and kill melanoma skin cancers. The new cell and gene therapy clinical trials have commenced in Adelaide, South Australia, led by Professor Michael Brown, Director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Research Officer Dr Tessa Gargett.

National Cancer Institute/Dr Lance Liotta Laboratory

AvantiCell Science, the Scottish-based life sciences company, has gained the backing of a major European funding source to build on its ground-breaking work in cell-based analysis. It beat competition from all over the continent to be chosen for Phase 1 of the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument project. AvantiCell Science was one of only four UK companies chosen out of 310 EU applicants for the funding, which for the first time allocates money to individual businesses.

Scientists at the University of Southampton are set to analyse research investments into infectious disease research, particularly pneumonia and maternal and neonatal infections, after receiving over £370,000 in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

CDC/Dr H Craig Lyeria

Analysis indicates that rates of high-grade cervical lesions decreased in young US women after vaccines were made available to protect against human papillomavirus (HPV), but the trend may be due in part to changes in cervical cancer screening recommendations.

CDC/Judy Schmidt; James Gathany

Microscopy technology supplied by Preston-based Image Solutions (Imsol) has been at the heart of efforts being made at the University of Dundee to understand better human health issues such as cancer, ageing and congential disorders.

The industry-standard SCAN range of colony counters has been given a number of new features to make all three models the unit of choice when making the decision to go for automated counting. The level of automatic control has been increased, giving the user an ever greater feel of user comfort. Now you can customise as many parameters as required, which eliminates complicated batch settings and user input needed.

Haden Freeman, a process engineering design consultant, has announced a three-year alliance with Bio Products Laboratory (BPL), the Elstree-based producer of human plasma products. Wayne Baxter, Haden Freeman managing director, commented: “We’ve enjoyed a very good long-term relationship with BPL over many years and this three-year alliance is the latest stage.”

Institute member Becky Haywood volunteered to work in Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis and is now raising money for children orphaned by the disease. She said: “Over Christmas and the New Year I spent five weeks in Sierra Leone, volunteering as part of the UK response to the crisis in West Africa. I was assigned to the Public Health England laboratory based in Makeni, Sierra Leone’s fourth largest city.

University of Southampton scientists have discovered a link between coronary heart disease and osteoporosis, suggesting that both conditions could have similar causes. In one of the first studies of its kind to use a special scanning technique, researchers found that people with a history of heart disease had substantially lower cortical volumetric bone mineral density in their wrist bone (the distal radius) than those without.

Recently, Alpha Laboratories celebrated 40 years of providing support to UK and international scientists. The company remains today, as always, a family-run business with the same vision and ethos, while continuing to focus on customer needs and ever-changing technologies.

A new YouTube video published by laboratory information management systems (LIMS) specialist Autoscribe provides a practical demonstration of the ease of configuration of the Matrix Gemini LIMS.

Sysmex Inostics, a subsidiary of Sysmex, has signed an exclusive distributor agreement with IndivuTest and its parent company Indivumed, a cancer research company focused on the development of individualised cancer diagnostics and therapies. This collaboration will offer Sysmex Inostics OncoBEAM laboratory services throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

With funding from the Wellcome Trust, the Eden Project has commissioned artists to bring the invisible world of bacteria to life. Many of them are collaborating with scientists and are busy creating an amazing collection of artwork, installations and interactive pieces, ranging from a sound piece based on DNA, to sculptures and textiles exploring the patterns of bacteria, to a series of portraits depicting bacteria found within the umbilicus.

Following its win in December, Mast Group has succeeded once again, winning the coveted BioHub Birmingham Outstanding Achievement Award at the Medilink UK Awards. Mast Group has been a market-leading manufacturer of in vitro diagnostic products, specialising in microbiology, for over 60 years and continues to be at the forefront of development in this field.