Latest News

  • New Test Predicts Teens’ Future Risk of Heart Disease

    UVA Today | The test, developed by doctors at U.Va. and West Virginia University, gives teens an early warning of future problems, but with plenty of time to change behaviors and lower the risks.

    Oct 9, 2015
  • Micro-Scale Optics Points to New Point-of-Care Tests for Ebola, Influenza

    Diagnostics World | The UC Santa Cruz lab of Holger Schmidt has published a pair of papers showing that they can identify viral particles and RNA on a thumbnail-sized chip. The research is based on the field of optofluidics, guiding light through liquid channels etched in tiny silicon devices.

    Oct 5, 2015
  • Announcing the 26-Hour Diagnostic Genome

    Bio-IT World Stephen Kingsmore and his colleagues at the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, announced 26-hour diagnostic whole genome sequencing in a paper published yesterday in Genomic Medicine, an improvement over the 50-hour whole genome sequencing the group published in 2012. The paper is published just one day after Kingsmore took his new post as President and CEO of the Rady Pediatric Genomics and Systems Medicine Institute at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

    Sep 30, 2015
  • FDA Turns Its Eye on Pathway's 'Direct-to-Consumer' Cancer Test

    Diagnostics World | This Thursday, the FDA sent a letter to Pathway Genomics warning the company that a newly introduced test, a liquid biopsy to find early-stage cancer in apparently healthy people, has not been clinically validated and could be harmful to public health. The letter not only calls attention to the shaky evidence for this test's accuracy, but also asserts the FDA's authority over a whole category of tests in a regulatory gray area.

    Sep 25, 2015
  • Matchmaker Exchange Platform Launched to Match Rare Disease Patients

    Diagnostics World Brief | Brigham and Women’s Hospital announced this morning the launch of the Matchmaker Exchange, a way for the rare disease community to share information and find new connections. Matchmaker Exchange connects databases of genetic information and symptoms that physicians and investigators can “match” with a patient’s rare disease.

    Sep 24, 2015
  • Smartphone Device Can Quickly Diagnosis Cancer

    Massachusetts General Hospital | MGH researchers have developed a device that can turns a smartphone camera into a microscope to diagnosis cancer and, in the process, reduce patients' anxiety and improve access to care. The next step is a clinical trial in Africa.

    Sep 17, 2015
  • 5 Questions Euan Ashley on Diagnosing the Undiagnosable

    Stanford | Today NIH launches its Undiagnosed Disease Network under the guidance of heart specialist Euan Ashley. Ashley sat for a Q&A with his home institution's news group.

    Sep 16, 2015
  • Memorial Sloan Kettering, Illumina Announce Collaborative ctDNA Research Plan

    Diagnostics World Brief | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Illumina this morning announced a collaboration to conduct research studies that are critical to understanding the biology of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). The studies aim to inform the development of new strategies to diagnose and monitor cancer and to help establish ctDNA as an important marker in the study and eventual treatment of cancer.

    Sep 16, 2015
  • WuXi NextCODE Launches Partnership with Chinese Children's Hospital

    Diagnostics World Brief | Less than a year after NextCODE Health was bought by Chinese services group WuXi PharmaTech, WuXi NextCODE has announced a partnership with the Children’s Hospital of Fudan University (CHFU) to bring genomic testing to clinical use in China for the first time.

    Sep 16, 2015
  • Foundation Medicine Launches Precision Medicine Partner Program for Cancer Centers

    Diagnostics World Brief  Foundation Medicine today announced the launch of its precision medicine partner program, Precision Medicine Exchange Consortium (PMEC), to facilitate data exchange, advance research, and support education and applications of precision medicine in oncology and molecular pathology.

    Sep 15, 2015
  • Who should decide? The Complex Ethics of Pediatric Genome Sequencing

    National Human Genome Research Institute | In a new analysis, a working group of the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) Consortium has offered an ethical framework to guide pediatricians in pursuing clinical sequencing studies, interpreting results, and, especially, disclosing findings. The study was posted online today.

    Sep 14, 2015
  • Pathway Genomics Announces Liquid Biopsy for Early Detection of Cancer

    Diagnostics World Brief | This morning, Pathway Genomics of San Diego announced the launch of two liquid biopsy tests to detect cancer-related DNA mutations, including one that the company claims is the first liquid biopsy on the market for early detection of cancer in healthy patients.

    Sep 9, 2015
  • HudsonAlpha, Kailos Genetics, and a Plan for Population-Wide BRCA Screening

    Diagnostics World | In a large pilot initiative with little precedent, HudsonAlpha and its genetic testing spinoff Kailos plan to offer free or steeply discounted genetic screens for susceptibility to breast cancer to thousands of women in the area of Huntsville, Alabama, including women with no known risk factors for the disease.

    Sep 9, 2015
  • Multimillion-Dollar Prize for a Rapid Antibiotic Resistance Test

    National Geographic Phenomena | The Longitude Prize, brought to American shores at an event in Boston last night, is promising over $12 million for the first individual or organization to create a 30-minute, point-of-care diagnostic to detect antibiotic resistance across multiple species and strains of disease-causing bacteria.

    Sep 9, 2015
  • Inside Cofactor Genomics' Pivot to Circular RNA Diagnostics

    WIRED | The St. Louis company has pulled up roots and moved to San Francisco to join the Y Combinator tech accelerator, on a hunch that catching circular RNA could make for a multi-purpose diagnostic further upstream than traditional protein- and antibody-based tests.

    Sep 8, 2015
  • At What Price Is BRCA Sequencing Good Preventative Medicine?

    MedPage Today | Authors of a new paper in JAMA Oncology argue that universal testing for breast cancer-related BRCA mutations offers vanishingly low benefit for the cost — but with several providers finding ways to offer these tests for just a few hundred dollars, that calculation may quickly be due for a revision.

    Sep 4, 2015
  • Widening Scope of Noninvasive Prenatal Testing Triggers Debate

    MIT Technology Review | Doctors and genetic counselors question the need for blood tests during pregnancy that are expanding from conditions like Down syndrome to extremely rare and poorly understood microdeletions.

    Sep 1, 2015
  • Exosome Diagnostics' Strategic Reimbursement Model for Cancer Genomics

    Boston Business Journal | A new Cambridge diagnostic-maker with a test aimed at identifying genetic markers of cancer is taking a different tack from Foundation Medicine in hopes of an easier path to getting insurance reimbursement.

    Aug 28, 2015
  • Blood Tests May Soon Diagnose Concussion

    MIT Technology Review | Quanterix and Banyan Biomarkers both say they've identified proteins that could lead to a blood test to quickly diagnose concussions. The proteins seem to increase in blood corresponding with the severity of brain injury. Banyan is in the midst of a clinical trial now.

    Aug 28, 2015
  • Black Box Diagnoses

    New Scientist | As academics and commercial companies design machine learning programs to diagnose disease based on analysis of medical images, doctors and patients may have to learn to trust "black boxes" that can give medical answers but can't explain their reasoning.

    Aug 26, 2015