Novel Concepts Medical, founded by Rachel Alkalay, PhD, and based in Tel Aviv, is delighted to announce the successful testing of its plant-based formulations for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The testing methodology was devised by Dr. Alkalay, who is the inventor of these formulations. The testing, led by Tracey Campbell, PhD, was carried out by the Centre for Microbial Chemical Biology at the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University...
AES Clean Technology, a leading provider of high-performance cleanroom facilities within the pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical industry, has announced a $14.2 million investment to open a new manufacturing facility located in Manheim Borough, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The new state-of-the-art facility will see 97 full-time jobs created and will serve as a manufacturing hub for its modular cleanroom systems....
“Automation and industrialization of COVID-19 PCR-testing will facilitate an immense scale-up of the global PCR-testing capacity. It will allow for a new approach to keep society open: preventive, regular testing (twice per week), which will create green bubbles and get us ahead of the curve” - Niels Kruize, CCO, MolGen. To get ahead of the curve, we will need to change our methodology of COVID-19 testing...
OxDX, a University of Oxford spin out building instant pathogen tests using super-resolution microscopy and machine learning,has raised £2.6m in pre-seed funding for its AI powered diagnostic technology that can recognise and identify specific species and strains of viruses1,2, bacteria and other pathogens within a sample in seconds. The initial funding is co-led by IQ Capital and Ahren Innovation Capital with participation from Science Creates Ventures, and will be used to expand the team and further validate the technology with development partners...
Agilent Technologies Inc. announce that researchers from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia, collaborated with Agilent experts on a proof-of-concept FTIR-based saliva COVID-19 testing workflow using the Agilent Cary 630 FTIR Spectrometer. The study investigated the pathophysiological response to a COVID-19 infection through ATR-FTIR spectroscopy....
The startup company Novel Concepts Medical is delighted to announce another major breakthrough in its research of COVID-19. Its novel plant-based treatment has resulted in successfully inhibiting the COVID-19 Omicron variant and blocking its connection to human cells. In case studies, volunteers had negative PCR results within 48 hours and quickly recovered from more than 16 symptoms of long COVID-19, including memory loss, loss of taste and smell, headaches, fatigue, and many symptoms that are common to both COVID-19 and the flu...
Ziath reports on the widespread adoption of its DataPaq™ Cube rack reader in Covid-19 testing labs for tracking of sample tubes cryogenically stored in cryoboxes. Keeping track of large numbers of Covid-19 RNA extraction samples can be an onerous task. Many labs around the world are using 2ml screw cap tubes with 2D-barcodes on the base for this work, including those laboratories equipped through the successful UN/IAEA supply program....
Aptamer Group plc, the developer of novel Optimer® binders to enable innovation in the life sciences industry, has demonstrated that its Optimer to the S1 subunit of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein is able to detect the Omicron variant. In vitro analysis by Aptamer Group, has shown that the Optimer binder interacts with the Omicron Spike protein with affinity in the low nanomolar (nM) range, a characteristic known to drive sensitivity within diagnostic assays...
QIAGEN has announced it is working with genetic laboratories around the world to increase COVID-19 testing capacity with its artus® SARS-CoV-2 Prep&Amp UM Kit that uses liquid-based sample-preparation technology to cut processing times for PCR results by up to two thirds. The company has significantly expanded production capacities to be able to meet the growing testing demand spurred by the emergence of the new Omicron variant...
In Libya, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) has installed laboratory containers from Waldner, which were completely planned and designed in Wangen im Allgäu, Southern Germany. These laboratory capacities are intended to increase the accessibility of PCR tests in the region. On behalf of the German government, GIZ supports developing and emerging countries in the fight against corona...
Vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus have been made possible by an unprecedented worldwide partnership. But medications against Covid-19 have as yet seen only partial success. With the support of the Bavarian Research Foundation, a Munich research team has developed a protein which has reliably prevented infection by the virus and its variants in cell culture tests...
AMSBIO has announced new additions to its portfolio of tools for COVID-19 research - two monoclonal antibodies that recognize the Spike RBD (B.1.1.529, Omicron Variant) protein and neutralizes its interaction with ACE2. The human ACE2 receptor is found on the surface of type I and II pneumocytes, endothelial cells, and ciliated bronchial epithelial cells. Research has shown that ACE2 mediates COVID-19 infection through direct binding of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein....
Evotec SE has announced that the Company has been selected by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ("BMBF") to receive a grant for the development of EVT075, a potential first-in-class immunomodulatory therapy against COVID-19. Evotec is one of three companies receiving a highly competitive grant as part of a new initiative by the BMBF to support the clinical development of novel therapeutic candidates against COVID-19...
Ziath reports how its super-fast 2D barcode rack readers are assisting leading COVID-19 testing lab – SummerBio LLC (Menlo Park, California, USA) to offer rapid, low-cost, high-volume testing solutions for educational organizations, employers and laboratories. SummerBio was conceived during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, to combat expense and slow turnaround times of existing PCR testing...
40 senior people working across UK labs were surveyed by Automata on their current challenges and views. The poll identified that automation is seen as a solution to relieve existing pressures, improve day-to-day capacity and turnaround time, reduce human error and ultimately enhance patient outcomes. Respondents worked across pathology (60%) and diagnostics (38%), with the vast majority (93%) of those questioned undertaking NHS work...
Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., a global leader of life science research and clinical diagnostic products, announce the launch of the Bio-Plex™ Pro Human SARS-CoV-2 Variant Neutralization Antibody Assays, for research use only (RUO). The assays allow scientists to measure neutralizing antibodies quickly and efficiently against wild-type and significant variants of SARS-CoV-2 virus...
Avacta Group plc, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and powerful diagnostics based on its proprietary Affimer® and pre|CISION™ platforms, announces that the AffiDX® SARS-CoV-2 antigen lateral flow test has received a CE mark for use as a consumer self-test in the UK and EU. Avacta partnered with Medusa Healthcare (“Medusa”) to obtain regulatory approval for the AffiDX® antigen test for consumer self-testing and has now received the CE mark from a European Notified Body...
PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE: PKI), a global leader committed to innovating for a healthier world, has announced the research use only (RUO) launch of the NEXTFLEX® Variant-Seq™ SARS-CoV-2 Kit v2 to accelerate the detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants. This complete next generation sequencing (NGS) solution will allow laboratories to increase sequencing throughput and make reliable variant identifications....
FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, Inc., a world leader in the development and manufacture of serum-free and chemically defined cell culture media for bioproduction and cell therapy manufacturing, has announced the establishment of an Innovation and Collaboration Center in Suzhou New District, China. Through this new center, experts will collaborate with customers to design upstream cell culture processes that meet their biomanufacturing needs...
INTEGRA’s automated pipetting solutions are helping scientists meet the challenge of efficiently pooling potentially infectious samples prior to testing for disease surveillance and diagnostics, increasing throughput and accelerating time to results. Pooling of patient samples is commonly used in immunoassays and molecular diagnostics to increase testing capacity while reducing reagent costs for the analysis of SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious agents....