Dec 28, 2012 | Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Physicians, including pathologists, will be able to see a more holistic picture of the mechanisms of disease using sophisticated computer-generated models
Medical diagnosis and treatment will be greatly influenced by the fast-growing field of computational medicine. It is a development with the potential to significantly change how physicians use clinical laboratory tests and anatomic pathology services.
Computational medicine describes how researchers are using sophisticated software tools to map highly complex biophysical and disease pathways. This cutting-edge imaging technology enhances their ability to decipher the complex, often non-intuitive dynamics of human disease. (more…)
Jun 13, 2011 | Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Smartphone-based lab testing device could eliminate need to send biopsies to pathology laboratories
For years, pathologists have wondered when technology would make it feasible to diagnose cancer at the patient’s beside. Eliminating the need for a traditional biopsy that goes off to the anatomic pathology laboratory, and requires 24 hours or more to process the tissue and evaluate the case. Now scientists at Harvard Medical School may be close to perfecting a device that can allow oncologists to do exactly that type of bedside analysis and produce a diagnosis in 60 minutes or less!
The heart of this technology is a new microchip that interacts with smartphone software. Researchers believe it will be possible for physicians to diagnose cancer at the bedside in less than 60 minutes.
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Mar 23, 2011 | Digital Pathology, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
Rapid gene sequencing technology will give medical laboratories a new diagnostic tool
Rapidly-evolving molecular diagnostics technology is about to trigger a major expansion in pre-conception genetic testing. In turn, this could benefit clinical laboratories and pathology groups as they begin to offer these genetic tests to help prospective parents screen their DNA for recessive gene mutations that cause 448 deadly childhood diseases in offspring.
This breakthrough medical laboratory test delivers two important benefits. First, as a universal carrier screening test, this multiplex assay greatly expands the number of diseases that can be screened at one time. Second, its next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology dramatically reduces the cost of genetic sequencing. Instead of thousands of dollars, this test only costs about $400!
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