News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel

News, Analysis, Trends, Management Innovations for
Clinical Laboratories and Pathology Groups

Hosted by Robert Michel
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GE Healthcare Pays $587 Million to Purchase Clarient, the Specialty Pathology and Cancer Testing Firm

GE’s Acquisition Considered A Sign Of More Deals To Come In The Clinical Laboratory Industry

Here’s more confirmation that anatomic pathology continues to be a big target on the radar screen of big healthcare corporations and Wall Street investors. Today, GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), disclosed it will pay $587 million to acquire Clarient, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLRT), the medical testing laboratory.

For pathologists and clinical laboratory managers, this is further confirmation that GE—one of the world’s major players in molecular imagin and radiology—intends to combine molecular diagnostic technologies used in anatomic pathology with its molecular imaging technologies used in radiology. In the press release about the acquisition, GE wrote that the addition of Clairent would help it create “new integrated tools for the diagnosis and characterization of cancer.”

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Medical Home Concept Poised to be National Model, May Increase Utilization of Clinical Pathology Laboratory Testing

Medicare to do National Demonstration Project Involving Medical Homes

Medical home pilot projects are being closely watched by pathologists and clinical laboratory managers. This is a new model of patient-centered care which has important advocates among primary care practitioners. If the medical home concept catches on, it may require clinical laboratories to provide laboratory testing services in a different way.

In southeastern Pennsylvania, a medical-home pilot project is taking a “do-it-yourself” approach to managing chronic illnesses. This project is viewed by some as a precursor to a national model. The innovative program, which combines the Wagner Chronic Care Model with the patient-centered medical home concept, provides physicians with resources to improve patient–doctor communications. The pilot project is also designed to educate willing patients on how to self-manage their chronic illnesses.
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Expanding Knowledge about the Human Microbiome Will Lead to New Clinical Pathology Laboratory Tests

With $175 Million in Funding, Human Microbiome Project is Making Rapid Progress

Research into the human microbiome is expected to trigger development of new diagnostic tests that will be offered by clinical pathology laboratories. That’s because the organisms that live on us and in us are as unique to individuals as their DNA, and scientists believe these microbes may be just as important to health. Which microbes and how much they matter to the host’s health are the questions a consortium of researchers involved in the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) hope to answer.

This five-year, $157-million project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, will sequence and classify 900 microbes believed to play a role in human health. Analysis of the sequences of the first 178 microbes, which was published in the May 21 issue of Science, held some surprises, particularly in regard to the extent and complexity of microbial diversity. About 90% of their DNA was previously unknown. The study also identified novel genes and proteins that contribute to human health and disease.

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Plasma Devices for Hand Cleaning Expected to Show Up Soon in Hospitals and Clinical Laboratories

Use of plasma technology will give healthcare workers another way to clean their hands


Even Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon would be amazed to learn that plasma technology is about to deliver a way for healthcare workers to sanitize their hands without using soap and water! Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will be interested to learn about a novel device that bathes hands with plasma as a way to reduce the spread of microorganisms by healthcare workers, including superbugs like MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus.

Prototypes already exist and are designed to be simple for healthcare workers to use. They would simply stick their hands into a small box that bathes the hands with plasma that is specifically engineered to zap bacteria, viruses and fungi. The plasma used in the hand sanitizer is a gas similar to that used in fluorescent lights, neon signs, and televisions, but works at room temperature and pressure.

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Pathologists Take Note: C. Craig Venter Just Created the First Synthetic Life Form

Milestone achievement may lead to more sophisticated clinical laboratory tests


Now science can create synthetic life forms and J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., is the first to do it. The landmark feat, which involved building the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporating it into a cell, “paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved,” noted the author of an article in guardian.co.uk.

J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., best known to pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists for his role in sequencing the first human genome, achieved the feat at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland. Venter and his team synthesized the 1.08 million base pair chromosome of a modified Mycoplasma mycoides genome. The synthetic cell, called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0, is proof of the principle that genomes can be designed in the computer, chemically made in the laboratory, and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new self-replicating cell controlled by the synthetic genome. The experiment demonstrates how fast genetic technologies are advancing.

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