Researchers at Rockefeller University and HHMI Identify Biomarker That Makes People “Mosquito Magnets”

These new insights might lead to a new line of clinical laboratory testing, particularly if the results could guide the patient to microbiome-based repellents that would remain effective for months once applied Researchers are beginning to identify what compounds make individuals more attractive to mosquitos. That is a first step in the development of a biomarker that could be developed into a clinical laboratory test. Question is: would there be enough consumers wanting to do a lab test to...

Healthcare Experts Say Consumers Are Ready for Self-Test Flu Kits, But Are Physicians and Clinical Laboratories Ready to Let That Cat Out of the Bag?     

Clinical laboratories could play a key role in helping users collect their samples correctly, interpret results, and transfer flu test data to their health records Clinical laboratories may have another opportunity to provide service to their clients and the physicians who treat them. With the success of at-home COVID-19 testing, consumer demand for self-tests is changing and advances in diagnostic technology now make it feasible to make more influenza (flu) tests available for consumers to...

Interest in Purchasing/Performing At-home Medical Tests Grows Among Older Adults, according to University of Michigan Poll

As clinical laboratory self-testing expands, sharing of test results with healthcare providers becomes even more essential to optimize health outcomes Survey data collected by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI) indicates that consumer interest in direct-to-consumer (DTC) medical self-testing is growing. In fact, DTC testing appears to be more popular ever, even among older adults who were asked how they feel about performing clinical laboratory...

US National Institutes of Health All-of-Us Research Program Delivering Genetic Test Results and Personalized Disease Risk Assessments to 155,000 Study Participants

NIH program could lead to new diagnostic biomarkers for clinical laboratory tests across a more diverse segment of US population In another milestone in the US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) plan to gather diverse genetic information from one million US citizens and then use that data to inform clinical care in ways consistent with Precision Medicine, the NIH’s All-of-Us Research Program announced in a news release it has “begun returning personalized health-related DNA results” to more...

23andMe Genetic Testing Helps Reunite Texas Woman with Her Family after Being Abducted in 1971 as a Toddler

Clinical laboratory scientist who aided in the investigation compared DNA test results with publicly available genetic information In an interesting twist in the solving of crime, genetic test results—along with help from a clinical laboratory scientist (CLS) turned amateur genealogist—guided relatives of Melissa Highsmith to her whereabouts after she was allegedly kidnapped as a toddler over half a century ago. According to The Guardian, the CLS helped locate Melissa by “interpreting the key...

University of Utah Study Points to Genetic Link for High Risk of Stillbirth

Researchers at the university suggested their findings could lead to new genetic tests that could be offered by medical laboratories New research conducted at the University of Utah suggests that clinical laboratories may someday be able to deploy genetic tests to indicate whether a couple has a higher-than-average risk of stillbirth. This is yet another example of how researchers are cracking DNA’s code to understand how certain gene variants may affect the healthcare of offspring. The...
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