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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Mayo Clinic and Whole Biome Announce Collaboration to Research the Role of the Human Microbiome in Women’s Diseases Using Unique Medical Laboratory Tests

This joint research effort will initiate a new field of clinical laboratory diagnostic tests that target the human microbiome

Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine is about to commence clinical trials utilizing innovative clinical laboratory tests that target the human microbiome. Women’s health is the initial focus for these clinical studies.

Mayo Clinic is collaborating with San Francisco-based Whole Biome, Inc., to conduct these clinical trials. Whole Biome developed the diagnostic tests to be used in the clinical study. (more…)

Digital PCR Poised to Give Traditional Real-Time PCR a Run for Its Money in Gene Sequencing and Development of New Medical Laboratory Tests

Adoption of digital PCR is slow at this time, but pathologists may want to track how researchers use this technology in the new clinical laboratory assays they use

Molecular pathologists will be interested to learn that there is a new contender in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) arena. It is digital PCR, and it has specific advantages over traditional real-time PCR methods.

For example, digital PCR can target specific DNA sequences in just one molecule of DNA. This new tool allows researchers to isolate rare genetic mutations too difficult to segregate with real-time PCR, noted a report from Insight Pharma Reports. (more…)

Duke University Researchers Demonstrate that Non-invasive Optical Biopsy Detects Cancer

New technology could reduce or even eliminate the need for clinical pathology laboratories to utilize tissue biopsies in the diagnosis of certain cancers

“Cancer flashlight” is the nickname some have given to a system that uses novel spectroscopic techniques to detect pre-cancerous cells in the colon. Developed by bioengineers at Duke University, the device may offer an alternative to current biopsy methods for detecting cancer and pre-cancer by anatomic pathologists.

The new technology may be a way to detect abnormal, dysplastic cells in the epithelium of various tissues in a non-invasive way, wrote The Atlantic in a story it recently published. The Atlantic thinks this technology breakthrough may be significant because approximately 85% of all cancers begin within the layers of the epithelium in various parts of the body.
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