RECENT NEWS

Radiometer’s AQT90 FLEX analysers have been used in a successful trial to asses D-dimer point-of-care testing (POCT) for suspected lower limb deep vein thrombosis (DVT), in which a reduction in patient waiting times of up to 75% was achieved.

The year 2018 marked the 64th anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Medical Laboratory Technologists (IAMLT), now named the International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Sciences (IFBLS). President Elect Alan Wainwright reports.

MediSieve is receiving two grants from Innovate UK, worth a total of around £1.56 million. One grant will progress development of a severe sepsis product, developing five magnetic particles to remove different sepsis targets. Another SRBI grant enables focus on one of those particles and how it can be used to remove antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria from a patient’s bloodstream.

The United Nations has designated 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table to celebrate one of the most significant achievements in science. Next month it will be 150 years since the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev took all of the known elements and arranged them into a table (pictured).

Scientists in the UK claim to have identified a cancer cell from which all cancer growth starts. The discovery of the cell, which they are calling ‘the cell of origin’ sheds new light on what fuels cancer growth and potentially how to stop it. Lead researcher Professor Michael P Lisanti said: “If, as we believe, we have found the beginning of the road, we may have to press the reset button on how we treat cancer with drugs.”

The Academy of Medical Sciences has announced the first participants of its novel Future Leaders in Innovation, Enterprise and Research (FLIER) Programme. Seventeen participants from organisations across the life sciences landscape have been selected for the first round of the prestigious FLIER leadership programme.

A former Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, is confirmed to give a welcome address at Future Healthcare International Exhibition and Conference at Olympia. Future Healthcare 2019 is organised in association with UKIHMA, a UK government trade promotion organisation jointly funded by the Department for International Trade, the Department of Health and NHS England.

The next British Society for Microbial Technology (BSMT) Annual Scientific Conference, entitled Respiratory Microbiology – A Day of Inspiration, will take place on Thursday 16 May 2019 at the RAF Museum Hendon. Some revisions to the programme have been made as outlined below.

The third in his Pathology in Practice series of articles on internal quality control, which will appear in the February 2019 issue, will see Stephen MacDonald continue his overview of process design with a look at defining process stability and setting target values.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has published a report revealing the extent to which social media propagates misinformation about vaccinations, and that the perceived risks of side effects are the key concern among those who choose not to vaccinate. While all vaccines have potential side effects, in reality they only affect some people – and are typically mild, short-lived, and far outweighed by the benefits of immunisation.

UK patients with N. gonorrhoeae (GC) now have the option of receiving the cheap and easily-administered oral antibiotic ciprofloxacin thanks to updated treatment guidelines and the availability of a molecular diagnostic and antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST). The new test can simultaneously diagnose gonorrhoea and provide information on whether or not a patient will respond to ciprofloxacin.

Beckman Coulter has launched the ClearLLab 10C System for the clinical flow cytometry laboratory. The new system includes the first 10-colour CE-IVD panels of immunophenotyping reagents for both lymphoid and myeloid lineages. The ClearLLab 10C System incorporates the company’s new Kaluza C software to streamline and standardize clinical QC reporting to international guidelines.

Scientists have identified and modelled a distinct biology for paediatric acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), one of the major causes of death in children. The breakthrough research, from the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Cancer Sciences, published in Nature Communications, significantly advances understanding of the disease and provides potential for developing specific treatment strategies for this childhood cancer, which is currently treated with therapies extrapolated from adult practice.

So-called super-gonorrhoea has hit the headlines once again with a report of two patients infected with a version of the sexually transmitted disease that is resistant to the first-choice antibiotics, which is a combination of azithromycin and ceftriaxone. The cases are not related to the world's ‘worst case’, which was detected in the UK in 2018 after the patient returned from a trip to South East Asia.

Congress 2019 is going to offer the most ambitious programme the Institute of Biomedical Science has ever hosted, which will be published at the beginning of February. Owing to the success in 2017 of the new Sunday programme, the Institute will once again start the Congress programme on the Sunday (13.00, 22 September) with four key lecture programmes: Education and Training, Quality Management, Molecular Pathology and a practical microscopy workshop for cytologists.

The UK NEQAS for Blood Coagulation Clinical and Laboratory Haemostasis meeting will return to Sheffield Hallam University on 5-6 June. This annual scientific and scheme participants' meeting attracts speakers and delegates from across the UK and abroad; and meeting reports are a regular feature of Pathology in Practice content.

Researchers have long-studied magnetotactic bacteria (MTB): aquatic microbes that have the ability to orientate themselves to magnetic fields. This unusual behaviour makes them a subject of interest for improving the understanding of biomagnetism, and potentially harnessing their abilities for future technologies, such as medical nanorobots.

CYCLERtest has announced that its patent for the optical calibration of quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) cyclers is now also granted in the USA, and complements similar patents held by CYCLERtest in Europe and Japan.

The Agrihealth Group of companies has utilised the Matrix Gemini Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) from Autsocribe Informatics to accommodate two different aspects of its business. A new case study shows how Matrix Gemini is managing the requirements of Agrihealth’s laboratory services and has also streamlined the company’s veterinary services processes.

The 100,000 Genomes Project, led by Genomics England in partnership with NHS England, has reached its goal of sequencing 100,000 whole genomes from NHS patients. This ground-breaking programme was launched in 2012, with the goal of harnessing whole-genome sequencing technology to uncover new diagnoses and improved treatments for patients with rare inherited diseases and cancer.