RECENT NEWS

Mortuary staff in Sheffield are using a new fingertip-based drug screening system to carry out a simple, non-invasive drug test on the deceased at the city’s Medico-Legal Centre, when pathologists indicate it may be helpful. The test works by analysing sweat deposits that remain on the fingertips after death.

ProteoMediX has announced the results from a retrospective study that showed the correlation of its prostate cancer diagnosis test with cancer aggressiveness in patients scheduled for prostate biopsies. The study findings presented at the 2018 European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, showed that the test has the potential to avoid a large number of biopsies.

Qiagen has received US regulatory approval for PartoSure, a novel test for assessing the risk of spontaneous preterm birth in patients with symptoms of preterm labour. Approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) follows successful uptake of the rapid test in more than 35 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.

Synthetic biologists at the University of Bristol have succeeded in generating laboratory-made red blood cells with rare blood group types that could one day be used to help patients who cannot be matched with donor blood.

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) announced recently that Dr John Anson (pictured) has taken over as CEO from Dr Mike Evans, who has become a non-executive director of OGT’s board. In addition, as part of the company’s increasing focus on diagnostics following its acquisition by Sysmex, OGT has appointed Paul Kenny in a new regulatory position—EVP of Regulatory and Medical Affairs. This new appointment will equip the company to navigate the ever-evolving IVD regulatory landscape.

United Kingdom-based test developer Mologic and US-based PATH have entered an agreement to advance a new rapid diagnostic test to support treatment and elimination of Plasmodium vivax, or relapsing, malaria. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide are at risk of infection with P. vivax malaria, mainly in South East Asia and Latin America. P. vivax is especially difficult to eliminate because the parasite can lie dormant in the liver and re-emerge, causing periods of relapsing illness. With each relapse, patients become progressively sicker, and can continue to spread the disease through mosquitoes to other members of the community.

The British Society for Microbial Technology (BSMT) has an excellent programme for its annual scientific conference, to be held on Friday, 18 May at PHE Colindale. The focus will be on Rapid Diagnostics – Time is Relative, and the meeting is relevant for senior biomedical and clinical scientists, other scientists and medical microbiologists.

A year after becoming the first site in the UK to benefit from the latest development in diagnostic testing from Roche Diagnostics, a pathology service in South Wales has seen turnaround times and overall efficiency of its laboratory transformed.

Gyros Protein Technologies announced recently that Oxford BioMedica has invested in two Gyrolab xPlore systems. This is the first time the Gyrolab technology has been applied within the gene and cell therapy area.

The independent charity Coeliac UK has launched a research fund and accompanying fundraising appeal, which aims to raise £5 million to change the future for people with coeliac disease and gluten-related autoimmune conditions. It will boost research efforts into key areas identified and agreed by patients, carers and healthcare professionals.

Developed by scientists at the VIB University of Ghent, Belgium, the Glyco Liver Profile test from Helena Biosciences is the first of its kind delivering a comprehensive picture of chronic liver disease enabling clinicians to diagnose and monitor patients with hepatic inflammation, fibrosis and cirrhosis while providing a prognostic marker of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk.

In work recently undertaken and published as a case study by the Oxford Academic Health Science Network (AHSN), Horiba UK Medical’s Microsemi CRP point-of-care testing (POCT) analyser was found to enable more rapid clinical decision-making, saving time and reducing costs, in emergency paediatric units.

The sixth in this important series of articles by Stephen MacDonald on individual aspects of the assessment of uncertainty of measurement considers the impacts created when contributors are not measured in the same units. Coverage continues towards understanding the application of measurement uncertainty to laboratory assays.

Vector Laboratories has announced its new five-part video training series on immunohistochemistry (IHC). 'Become an IHC Expert (and Avoid Common Pitfalls)' is being released online, one segment per day. Access to the training series is free of charge, and topics covered include how to select reagents depending on experimental priorities, how to use ancillary reagents to improve results, how to optimise the protocol, and when to use advanced detection protocols.

Horizon Discovery has introduced Edit-R CRISPRa arrayed CRISPR RNA (crRNA) libraries, the latest addition to its CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) reagent platform from the recently acquired Dharmacon business. The new libraries offer a powerful tool for drug discovery, pathway analysis and disease progression studies.

Medical Research Council-funded scientists are beginning a five-year study of childhood arthritis and its linked eye inflammation, uveitis, with the aim of better understanding how to treat the complex condition, which affects one in 1000 under the age of 16 in the UK.

Driving down turnaround times (TATs), to enable more rapid diagnosis and treatment of patients, is the key philosophy of Source BioScience. As a leading provider of outsourced histopathology services to the NHS and private healthcare centres in the UK, Source BioScience has, after a detailed review of all other available alternatives in the digital marketplace, unveiled investment in a digital pathology platform from its preferred partner, Philips.

Approximately 41,000 people are diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) in the UK each year, and over 90% of cases are treated successfully following early detection. Diagnosis of CRC is normally achieved by colonoscopy; however, UK endoscopy resources are stretched to breaking point.

Medical diagnostics manufacturer Helena Biosciences, working in collaboration with AB Scientific, has been awarded the Northern Ireland regional tender for the supply and delivery of clinical electrophoresis. Helena Biosciences is a manufacturer of medical diagnostics equipment used in clinical laboratories worldwide.

Melbourne-based Henley Health has been appointed as Intelligent Fingerprinting’s first Asia Pacific region distributor for its new non-invasive and flexible drug test solution. The world’s first portable fingerprint-based drug test – which works by analysing sweat from a fingerprint to determine if someone has recently used cocaine, opiates, amphetamines or cannabis – is now available in Australia and New Zealand following this agreement.