The AACC is urging laboratory professionals to contact their members of Congress and request that they support H.R.1248, the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act, which would preserve recent advances in state newborn screening programs. Earlier legislation contributed to a dramatic expansion in newborn screening for treatable ...

“Dark matter” sounds like something George Lucas would tell us is at the heart of the empire. In reality, it’s the parts of the human genome that science has yet to identify -- which still sounds like it belongs in a sci-fi movie, but the discovery could provide researchers with a new type of specimen with which to analyze the human genome. A ...

ADVANCE Discourse: Lab Knowing Let’s forget about money for a second. I know that can be difficult – what, with all of those pesky adult responsibilities and everything, but bare with me.  If money wasn’t an object, and your physician wanted to order a test that you knew wouldn’t be covered under your insurance, would you get ...

The rise of personalized treatment has healthcare professionals completely rethinking the way they treat cancer. At the molecular level, each is different and should be treated accordingly, but similarities shouldn’t be ignored either. A study from the Cancer genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network on endometrial tumors divided the cancer types into ...

Imagine a healthcare facility where a small sample of blood is taken as you walk in the door, just .25 attomoles -- you’d barely notice. They drop your sample into a small, handheld device and, by the time your physician has come to see you, they are ready to tell you if they would like further testing for diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancer ...

Most of us know amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by its other name, Lou Gehrig’s disease. After a recent preliminary trial at Emory University yielded positive results, a phase II trial has been approved by the FDA. An article from Newswise described the first phase of the trial as fairly successful, stating all procedures were “delivered ...

An acronym pulled from the alphabet soup is CQI, or Continuous Quality Improvement. Managers and quality improvement people use this to show that everything can be improved, even processes that work. Continuously trying to improve quality generates incremental improvements; rather than completely redesigning a process, it is changed in response ...

I’ve discussed the introduction of human genes into test mice before, but apparently rats are showing much more promise in Alzheimer’s research. A recent article from NPR discussed the need for a better model for humans in the study and, potentially, the treatment of Alzheimer’s. After studying genetically altered mice and later ...

Each day, I see people arrive for work after they have had breakfast at home. They sometimes arrive with coffee. Within two hours or so they go to morning break and eat a muffin, fruit, or some other snack, often with more coffee. Two hours later they have lunch, and so on. Our days are one long glucose tolerance test. Yet we require that ...

With so many new technologies emerging in recent years, trying to combine multiple advances can be challenging, especially when those advances haven’t been standardized yet. In a recent article from Newswise, doctors and researchers from both the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School discussed “a new problem in the delivery of personalized ...