Dec 13, 2013 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers can expect environmental microbiome detection and monitoring to play an increasingly important role in disease diagnosis, treatment and prevention
For decades, microbiologists and clinical laboratory professionals have prowled the corridors of hospitals to swab physicians’ neckties, the hands of nurses and staff, and various surfaces. These swabs were then cultured to demonstrate how easily infectious microbes can be transmitted in everyday activities.
Now researchers, including microbiologists, are combing the New York City subway system to swab surfaces, collect specimens, and create a map of the urban microbiome. Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City want to use the microbiome to pioneer a new method for city-level pathogen monitoring. (more…)
Nov 11, 2013 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
The Center brings together scientists from around the city to translate promising research into medical innovations to treat, prevent and manage disease
Gene sequencing is going big time in the Big Apple. Last month the New York Genome Center (NYGC) moved into a state-of-the-art, 170,000-square-foot genome sequencing and biometrics research building. New York City is putting down its marker to claim a leading role in advancing genetic knowledge.
What makes this development notable for the clinical laboratory industry and the anatomic pathology profession is the fact that cities across the nation are investing substantial amounts of capital to create their own genetic and biotech research and development hubs. Their common objective is to bring together all the expertise, financial support, and business acumen needed to create a job-creating critical mass in the fields of biotech and genetic medicine. (more…)
Jan 30, 2012 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Cheaper, faster, and more accurate rapid gene sequencing technologies show great promise in identifying infectious disease agents
In clinical laboratories across the nation, microbiology has greatly benefited from the introduction of molecular diagnostics in clinical practice. Now the field of microbiology is poised to undergo a more profound transformation of clinical practice, due to advances in whole genome sequencing.
Leaders in this field are calling these developments “transformative” and say they have the potential to change “all aspects of microbiology.” The driver to this emerging trend is advanced technology that makes it possible to sequence the whole gene sequence of an organism in a day or less, for a cost that is $1,000 and falling rapidly.
In the past six months, microbiologists and pathologists at such hospitals as Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, have begun to do whole genome sequencing of microbes found in specimens collected from patients arriving in the emergency room. The New York Times wrote about these developments in a story titled “The New Generation of Microbe Hunters,” that it published on August 29, 2011.
(more…)
