The global COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented demands on pathology services to test patient samples for the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus alongside their pre-existing respiratory virus panels. This extreme influx of samples quickly exhausted the capacity of existing systems in the Microbiology and Molecular Pathology Department at Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology (SNP) – part of the Sonic Healthcare Group – in Brisbane, Australia, creating a clear need for additional automated liquid handling instruments....

The Francis Crick Institute, the UK’s largest discovery biomedical research lab, has offered to support the Government’s efforts to tackle the spread of COVID-19. In communications with Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, the Crick’s extensive scientific resources and expertise have been offered to assist in the Government’s fight against the Coronavirus pandemic by helping to increase the number of tests that can be conducted by Public Health England and the NHS....

Test will now be available for qualified laboratories across the European Union. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, today announced that it has received the CE mark in the European Union for its diagnostic test to detect nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. "The CE mark certification is an important step in combatting the outbreak of COVID-19 across Europe," said Marc N. Casper, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific....

3-Monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD), 2-monochloropropane-1,3-diol (2-MCPD) and glycidol are known as contaminants in foodstuffs due to manufacturing. MCPD fatty acids may occur during the refinement process of oils and fats at high temperature or in the presence of chloride containing salts. However, refinement is an essential chemical and physical process. Only through this kind of treatment with high temperature undesired odorants and flavoring substances as well as possible traces of toxic compounds (pesticides, heavy metals or mycotoxins)...

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, announced that on March 13, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for its diagnostic test that can be used immediately by CLIA high-complexity laboratories in the U.S. to detect nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and not for any other viruses or pathogens....

Mologic Ltd, a leading developer of lateral flow and rapid diagnostic technologies, has announced that it has been awarded circa £1 million by the Wellcome Trust and the Department for International Development (DFID), as part of the UK government’s £46 million international coronavirus (COVID-19) prevention and research funding package. The funding will be used by Mologic and global partners, to develop a point-of-need diagnostic test for the virus...

Optical Surfaces Ltd. reports how a motorised UV-Vis-NIR collimator and interferometric alignment system it supplied to the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) in Berlin, Germany has been used to set-up the ground breaking DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS). On 23 October 2019, DLR the renowned German Aerospace Center, and the U.S. company Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) announced the start of routine operations for DESIS on the International Space Station...

Micromeritics Instrument Corp., a global leader in material characterization technologies, will deliver a complimentary seminar on the application of gas adsorption techniques to porous materials at the Utrecht University (The Netherlands) on 8th April 2020. Prof. Dr. Petra De Jongh, Chair of Catalysts and Energy Materials at the university’s Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science will join experts from the company to deliver a program covering new trends in physical gas adsorption and chemisorption, as well as the basic principles

Trajan Nutrition has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) to accelerate the translation in the global market of nutrition testing research led by professors Maria Makrides and Robert Gibson. Trajan Scientific and Medical established Trajan Nutrition in 2017 as a joint venture with Prof Makrides and Prof Gibson, and recently appointed Mr Marco Baccanti as CEO....

Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, and NanoPin Technologies, Inc., the developer of the novel NanoPin diagnostic platform for rapid and quantified results from patient blood samples, have entered into a collaborative relationship to advance blood-based infectious disease detection technology through the development of highly sensitive liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based workflows...

Agilent Technologies Inc. and Visiopharm have entered a co-marketing agreement. The announcement was made at the USCAP 109th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, CA. Based on a joint vision of end-to-end quality and standardization of tissue diagnostics, the partnership will address the currently unmet needs of pathology labs around the world. The companies’ shared goal is to provide specific technologies, produ­­cts, and services that will improve the standardization of pathology labs and accelerate accurate diagnoses....

Metrohm USA is pleased to announce the winner of its 2020 Young Chemist Award, Dr. Pawan Jolly. Pawan is a Senior Research Scientist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute where he works under the supervision of Donald E. Ingber, MD, PhD, Director Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Pawan’s research focuses on developing an anti-fouling sensor coating to be used in low cost diagnostic tools....

Pharmacogenomics – a new scientific research field focused on the interplay between the human genome and the safety and efficacy of modern drugs, may level the playing field for all patients. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 1.3 million Americans each year end up in the hospital because of an adverse drug reaction (ADR). With more than 100,000 deaths per year attributable to ADRs - making it the fourth leading cause of death...

Arctoris Ltd, an Oxford-based company that operates the world’s first fully automated drug discovery platform, has announced the 2nd edition of BioTarget, a global business competition for drug discovery entrepreneurs. BioTarget 2020 is now open for applications. BioTarget is a non-profit initiative, sponsored by Arctoris Ltd and leading investment management firm Baillie Gifford, and is directed at identifying and supporting emerging biotech companies dedicated to innovation within drug discovery...

Governing molecular mechanism for chromosome condensation identified 140 years after mitosis first described. The molecular mechanism underlying chromosome condensation, one of the key steps in cell division, has been discovered from three-dimensional (3-D) refractive index (RI) reconstructions of individual mitotic cells. Writing in Nature Communications1, the authors describe using the Tomocube HT-1S holotomographic microscope to quantify the structural and biochemical parameters of the cytoplasm and chromosomes within the individual mitotic cells...

EU COST actions aim to connect and foster collaborations between research communities in Europe. COMULIS is one such COST action focusing on “COrrelated MUltimodal imaging in LIfe Sciences” It brings together basic life science and (pre)-clinical imaging scientists to combine different imaging technologies with the goal to generate more informative data. The first training school by COMULIS was organised by Work Group 1, Correlative Light Electron Microscopy (CLEM)...

GCxGC-MS is the ideal analytical technique to accommodate the complexity of the samples due to its enhanced peak capacity and sensitivity. For quantitative purposes, and when using flow modulation, splitting to a FID is a logical choice. Sample preparation and sample introduction introduce further challenges due to the complex nature of the samples....

A new award recognising individuals who have made significant contributions to the eradication of infectious diseases has been launched by RCVS Knowledge, in memory of eminent veterinary virologist Walter Plowright and his wife, Dorothy Plowright. Every two years, the Plowright Prize will offer £75,000 to recognise an individual working in Europe or the Commonwealth who has made a significant impact on the control, management and eradication of infectious diseases...

The UK’s National Measurement Laboratory (NML) at LGC has expanded its portfolio of reference materials to include the first ever multi-allergen reference material kit containing five common allergens (milk, egg, almond, hazelnut, walnut), traceable to the SI (International System of Units). Food allergy is a serious and growing problem, with up to 2 million people in the UK estimated to be affected....