RECENT NEWS

The RIQAS scheme is the largest global external quality assessment (EQA) scheme in the world, offering 15 comprehensive programmes, and a brand new RIQAS dedicated website (www.riqas.com) will soon go live. The new RIQAS site will allow RIQAS participants to source all the information they require. Instead of contacting RIQAS headquarters, you can simply log onto our user-friendly, fresh website and find what you’re looking for in a couple of clicks!

More than 250 UK and Irish laboratory managers recently met in London to participate in Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics' first annual Siemens Academy meeting. The three-day event provided an engaging and enlightening forum to learn commercial skills, understand the need for long-term pathology planning, embrace business tools and absorb scientific best practice from peers spearheading change. Specialist lectures, real laboratory case studies and open debate sessions were combined to draw together all the key topics facing pathology. Guest speakers, Siemens representatives and the hundreds of delegates were able to discuss openly the current challenges and solutions facing pathology today.

The director of a newly formed blood service in Chile recently saw how a world-class tissue bank works. Dr Christina Martinez made a special visit to Liverpool to view the groundbreaking tissue bank in Speke and experience the workings of the largest facility of its kind in the world. The visit was part of a joint venture between NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and the Chilean Ministry of Health that aims to set up a tissue bank as part of plans to run the first ever completely unremunerated voluntary blood and tissue service in Chile.

Many people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are not being diagnosed or treated sufficiently quickly, and some services are inadequately coordinated, according to a report published recently by the National Audit Office (NAO). Delay in treatment is detrimental to a patient’s health, their quality of life and the economy.

Visitors to Sebia’s global website will discover a new interactive and extremely user-friendly version. Available in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese), it facilitates international connections with over 80 countries in which Sebia’s technology is distributed.

Continuing to make his mark in his 80th year, Don Whitley has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Bradford. Don has a long list of achievements in the field of applied microbiology, the most notable of which include the new technologies designed and manufactured by his company, Don Whitley Scientific. The award is also in recognition of his support, over many years to the university’s Division of Biomedical Sciences. This includes intercalation training and employment opportunities provided to undergraduate students and his contribution as chairman of the Advisory Board in Biomedical Science.

Following a successful pilot, SRC, a provider of digital dictation and voice recognition solutions to NHS trusts, has rolled out its digital dictation solution to 500 users at Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals. The solution, based on the WinScribe digital dictation technology, is central to the trust's aim to distribute all patient correspondence within 24 hours and deploy integrated digital systems to optimise the patient care referral to treatment pathway.

The Karolinska Institute’s Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology is using Chip-Man Technologies’ Cell-IQ live-cell imaging and analysis platform to investigate mechanisms of infertility and oocyte maturation, as well as for development and characterisation of human embryonic stem cell lines.

The Institute of Mechanical Engineers has recognised Randox Laboratories with an award for product innovation at the Manufacturing Excellence Awards held in June in London, attended by Dr Peter FitzGerald (managing director), Gareth Wilson (engineering project leader) and Ivan McConnell (R&D manager).

An investigator carrying out research on the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying synaptic plasticity and memory storage has won the Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology 2008. By revealing the importance of translational control in the formation of long-lasting memories, Dr Mauro Costa-Mattioli’s research could help to develop new treatments for major brain disorders including impaired memory function in ageing and neurodegenerative diseases.

Sebia UK is celebrating the placement of its 50th automated capillary electrophoresis instrument at the Royal Preston Hospital. Developed with Sebia’s sound expertise and sophisticated technology, Capillarys and Minicap are innovative, fully automated systems.

RTS Life Science has supplied its A3 SmaRTStore as part of the commercial-scale biorepository at the Broad Institute. The Broad Institute’s Biological Samples Platform (BSP) is a sample management programme with expertise in sample storage and processing technology, procedures for the collection and use of human samples in biomedical research, histological analyses of human tissues, and the development of laboratory informatics management systems for detailed sample tracking. A poster (pictured) detailing the BSP is available from the Broad Institute website.

Researchers at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford, are using Chip-Man Technologies’ Cell-IQ platform to study multipotent live cells during differentiation. The Institute is a world leader in translational medical research and, in this project, the Molecular Haematology Unit is attempting to understand the signalling pathways involved in haematopoiesis.

Recently, Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham commissioned the installation of two Elga Process Water Medica PRO RE120 water purification units in its biochemistry laboratory. The Elga Process Water MEDICA Pro range includes four models that deliver up to four litres/min of high-purity water to individual or multiple clinical analysers in alternative configurations depending on whether the analysers require a pressurised or non-pressurised supply.

According to a National Audit Office (NAO) report, the NHS has successfully transferred 1.1 million NHS employees to a new simplified pay system. Given the scale of the NHS, this was a substantial task that the NHS, in partnership with trades unions, achieved in a short timescale.

Entries to Oxoid’s 2008/2009 Infection Control Team of the Year Awards have now closed. The Awards, with a first prize of £5000, and second and third prizes of £1000 and £500, respectively, are held in association with the Infection Prevention Society. Initiated by Oxoid in 2003, the Awards recognise and reward the dedicated teams of infection control microbiologists, infection control nurses and doctors who, each day, strive to prevent or reduce rates of hospital-acquired infection and improve infection control procedures, making hospitals safer places for patients, staff and visitors alike.

Sterilin has announced the availability of its newly rebranded comprehensive literature for packaging products. It features a range of products to meet the needs of selected markets within the packaging field, as an extension of its success in the laboratory, medical and pharmaceutical industries.

Olympus Life Science Europa has signed an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific for open-track automation for clinical laboratories.

Shimadzu UK has launched a new GC Consumables brochure showing its range of convenient, optimised and competitively priced consumables for its GC and GC/MS instruments.

Selected from over 50 entries, the first ever Olympus Early Career Scientist Microscopy Award has been presented to two researchers.