Oct 14, 2020 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Precision Medicine
Pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists know that influenza vaccines typically produce short-lived protection and researchers have new clues as to why this is true With so much interest in development of a COVID-19 vaccine, findings by researchers at Atlanta’s Emory Vaccine Center into why the vaccine for influenza (Flu) is so short-lived offer a new window on how the body’s immune system responds to invading viruses and what happens to the immunity over time. Because the autumn...
Oct 5, 2020 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Delivery of clinical laboratory specimens and medical supplies by drone is beginning to happen in different parts of the world The idea that fleets of flying drones may someday legally transport clinical laboratory specimens may sound good—it may even be beneficial from a healthcare perspective—but it also could be hugely disruptive to medical labs that maintain large and expensive courier/logistics capabilities. So, the announcement that the FAA had granted approval to Amazon’s new drone...
Oct 2, 2020 | Instruments & Equipment, International Laboratory News, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Gene sequencing is enabling disease tracking in new ways that include retesting laboratory specimens from before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak to determine when it arrived in the US On February 26 of this year, nearly 200 executives and employees of neuroscience-biotechnology company Biogen gathered at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel for their annual leadership conference. Unbeknownst to the attendees, by the end of the following day, dozens of them had been exposed to and become infected by...
Sep 21, 2020 | Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Might clinical laboratories soon be called on to conduct mass testing to find people who show little or no symptoms even though they are infected with the coronavirus? Clinical laboratory managers understand that as demand for COVID-19 testing exceeds supplies, what testing is done is generally performed on symptomatic patients. And yet, it is the asymptomatic individuals—those who are shown to be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, but who experience no symptoms of the illness—who...
Sep 18, 2020 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Studies presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference point to the p-tau217 protein as an especially useful biomarker Researchers disclosed a potentially useful biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease at a major conference this summer. The good news for clinical laboratories is that the biomarker is found in blood. If further research confirms these early findings, medical laboratories could one day have a diagnostic test for this condition. That possibility emerged from the...
Sep 9, 2020 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations, Webinars
Abbott sends the SARS-CoV-2 test results directly to patients’ smartphones, which can be displayed to gain entrance into areas requiring proof of COVID-19 testing There is no greater example that COVID-19 is a major force for change in the clinical laboratory industry than the fact that—though the US federal government pays 50% of the nation’s total annual healthcare spend of $3.5 trillion—it recently spent $760 million to purchase 150 million COVID-19 tests from Abbott Laboratories...
