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Innovative tests may resolve challenges in children’s healthcare

A first-of-its-kind test could make it easier for newborns to get care for spinal muscular atrophy, a common genetic disease that is life-threatening but treatable if caught in time. Findings on this method and a second innovative test that could improve diagnosis of paediatric urinary tract infections (UTIs) were discussed at the 2022 AACC Annual […]

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New research could reduce healthcare disparities based on race when diagnosing kidney disease

New research shows that removing a race modifier from a formula used to diagnose kidney disease could lead to more equitable care for Black patients. This study and a second that examines how this same diagnostic approach impacts Asian patients was presented at the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo.

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Theranos whistleblowers and experts on AI and genomic sequencing draw nearly 17,000 attendees to 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting

AACC welcomed thousands of medical professionals and healthcare leaders to the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago from July 24-28. The meeting featured ground-breaking diagnostic advances that will help solve challenging patient health problems, and affirmed just how essential laboratory medicine professionals are to […]

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New automation technologies at the vanguard of IFA diagnostics

EUROIMMUN has been creating innovative solutions for immunofluorescence diagnostics for over thirty years. Continuing this long tradition, the company has over the last year introduced further groundbreaking products to increase the efficiency and standardization of indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) analyses. CLI talked to Dr Panagiotis Grypiotis, Head of Product Management Autoimmune Diagnostics, Endocrinology/Biologics and Automation […]

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Setting high standards for a low environmental impact

How we have cut emissions to limit global warming INTEGRA Biosciences is a leading provider of high-quality laboratory tools and consumables for liquid handling and media preparation. Headquartered in Zizers, Switzerland, the company is committed to fulfilling the needs of laboratory professionals in the life sciences industry, and has a strong focus on minimizing its […]

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INTEGRA Biosciences makes molecular diagnostics accessible to all with automated pipetting

Renegade.bio

INTEGRA Biosciences’ pipetting solutions are being used by renegade.bio to address the urgent need of diagnostic testing for COVID-19 in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. The company carries out huge numbers of SARS-CoV-2 assays each day, and has chosen INTEGRA’s automated adjustable electronic pipettes and pipetting robots to perform PCR assays faster and more cost-effectively, while retaining high degrees of sensitivity and specificity.

Renegade.bio is a public-benefit corporation, and was founded in March 2020 to make SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing more accessible to the wider population, supporting health equity goals. When setting up its workflow, the company chose to combine a decentralized approach to sample collection with automation of repetitive liquid handling tasks with INTEGRA pipetting solutions, reducing their costs while greatly increasing productivity and still turning around assay results in as little as 12 hours.

Dr Gabriel Paulino, Co-founder and Vice President of Product Development and Innovation at renegade.bio, commented: “The ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot equipped with a VOYAGER adjustable tip spacing pipette is one of our main automation platforms. This has really helped us to increase our throughput, as the VOYAGER is the only solution that can automatically adjust the distance between the individual tips, allowing us to move samples between our different sample tubes and plates easily. We also use the VIAFLO 96 handheld electronic pipette for assay set-up, as it’s really useful to be able to pipette reagents into every well of a microplate at the same time.”

“We love the user interface of the INTEGRA products. It’s so easy to program the pipettes, and these intuitive tools have made the whole assay process incredibly streamlined. All the pipetting is now automated, which helps to reduce human error and fatigue, and allows us to work around the clock at our maximum capacity of around 2000 tests a day. INTEGRA was definitely the right solution for us, and we’ve recently invested in a MINI 96 portable electronic pipette to further streamline our workflows.”

Termo Fisher Scientific Transcend DSX-1

Thermo Scientific’s new automated dried spot sampling and analysis system saves time, labour and reagent costs

Termo Fisher Scientific Transcend DSX-1

Thermo Fisher Scientific enables clinical research, toxicology and anti-doping laboratories performing dried spot sampling and analysis to utilize a new automated sample prep and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) system to improve efficiency, robustness, sensitivity and sample traceability.

The new Thermo Scientific Transcend DSX-1 integrated sample prep and UHPLC system eliminates disc punching typically associated with dried matrix (spot) cards, and optimizes sample extraction and recovery of multiple matrices (e.g., blood, urine, serum and saliva). The new system enables laboratories performing routine analysis of drugs and other compounds to achieve substantial savings on time, labour and reagent costs compared to manual workflows.

Proprietary flow-through desorption with heated capillary eliminates the need for manual, time-consuming extraction protocols and the automatic addition of an internal standard prior to the extraction minimizes matrix interference. Robustness and sensitivity are enhanced through online proprietary sample cleanup and enrichment via Thermo Scientific TurboFlow technology, producing confident results.

“Toxicology laboratories play a crucial role in detecting drug use and misuse in an ongoing struggle to safeguard society against increasing numbers of substances at ever decreasing concentrations. Dried spot analysis has emerged as a key technology in this area, requiring only a small amount of sample and, therefore, minimizing the user impact,” said Brad Hart, senior director, analytical vertical and life science mass spectrometry marketing, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “With the conventional workflow being held back by time-consuming manual procedures, we designed the Transcend DSX-1 system to ensure laboratories are able to effectively increase throughput to meet demand, while still ensuring the integrity and quality of results that are expected.”

Professor Mario Thevis, director for the Center for Preventative Doping Research, German Sport University, Cologne said: “Dried blood spot (DBS) tests have the potential to contribute substantially to an improved anti-doping testing program, today and in the future, supporting the clean athlete as well as the overall doping control analytical strategy. DBS analysis is the latest tool approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and was introduced at this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, China. In order to accommodate the specific needs associated with DBS analyses, and the considerable number of target analytes, robust, sensitive, programmable and especially automated DBS analytical options will offer critical advantages to anti-doping laboratories.”

The Transcend DSX-1 system is controlled by Thermo Scientific Aria MX software, which streamlines dried spot analysis by fully integrating all aspects of the workflow, such as:

  • Sample card handling
  • LC pump operation and valve switching
  • On-line sample clean-up
  • Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry methods.

 

Furthermore, the Intelligent Vision Camera ensures data integrity and enables retrospective monitoring by capturing sample traceability, chain of custody and accurate spot recognition.

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MEDICA: New digital exhibitor profile enables visitors to prepare in advance

After the world’s leading medical trade fair MEDICA was held completely virtually for the first time in 2020 due to the pandemic it will now take place again as a live event supplemented by many digital offerings and live broadcasts from the stage.

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Ziath takes its sample management innovations on tour

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Ziath says they will be exhibiting their latest DP5 range scanners and readers at most major laboratory and automation events across Europe over the next few months.

Highlights of products on show will include the new Handheld 3 device to directly interrogate your sample inventory database directly from the freezer, the new Uno and Duo convenient low-cost single tube readers and the Mohawk / Mirage combination sample picking and verification station.

Lab Days Copenhagen, Nordic Biobanking Symposium

These innovative sample management products will be on show at Lab Days Copenhagen and the Nordic Biobanking Symposium in Gothenburg (both 6-8 September), the ELRIG-FR automation village at Forum Labo in Lyon (19-20 September) and at WOTS 2022 in Utrecht (27-30 September 2022).

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SLAS/ELRIG Drug Discovery, Spanish National Biobanking

Visitors to SLAS/ELRIG Drug Discovery at London’s Excel Centre on 4-5 October and the Spanish National Biobanking show in Santander on 27-28 October will also be able to see LUX – a new portable whole rack barcode reader. LUX is designed to scan and decode a 96-well rack of 2D barcoded tubes in under a second and send the data wirelessly straight to your laptop, tablet, or phone.

INTEGRA Biosciences and MACHEREY-NAGEL partner to automate NucleoSpin nucleic acid purification kits

INTEGRA Biosciences and MACHEREY-NAGEL partner to automate NucleoSpin nucleic acid purification kits

INTEGRA Biosciences and MACHEREY-NAGEL partner to automate NucleoSpin nucleic acid purification kits

INTEGRA Biosciences has collaborated closely with nucleic acid extraction experts MACHEREY-NAGEL (MN) to develop automated protocols for a variety of NucleoSpin RNA and DNA extraction and purification kits on the ASSIST PLUS pipetting robot.   The combination of these technologies provides high quality, purity and yield for DNA and RNA extracts from varied specimen types, suitable for use in a range of applications.

Each MN kit comes in a 96 well format, and can be easily automated on the ASSIST PLUS using a 12 channel 1250 μl VIAFLO electronic pipette   with 1250 μl Sterile, Filter GripTips. Preset, biologically validated protocols can be quickly downloaded through VIALAB software, offering walk-away pipetting and incubation for:

Automating liquid handling tasks using the ASSIST PLUS eliminates ergonomic hazards and provides more hands-free time for the user. Pipetting errors and variability between users are avoided, and the validated workflows consistently guarantee maximum reproducibility. In addition, the flexibility of this system ensures that it will always have a purpose in the lab, and can be used to simplify a wide range of general life sciences and diagnostics tasks for far-reaching applications.