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How secure are labs handling world's deadliest pathogens? Reuters Share    
To keep deadly viruses from escaping, each lab uses negative air flow and dedicated exhaust systems. Workers wear full-body air-supplied suits. To test its security, Galveston National Laboratory ran an exercise with the Federal Bureau of Investigation simulating a would-be intruder and another, with the University of Texas, war-gaming a campus shooter. The facility passed both tests. Galveston's strict security underlines a little-known fact about hundreds of labs working with bacteria and viruses that could make the 1918-19 Spanish flu epidemic — when as many as 40 million people died — seem like a summer cold. Many of the precautions it takes are not required by law. More
Subscribe free to magazine of public health labs ASCLS Share
Subscribe free to the digital edition of the Association of Public Health Laboratories' quarterly magazine, Lab Matters. The magazine covers developments affecting governmental health laboratories in the U.S. and globally, including detection and surveillance of infectious diseases, select agents, environmental contaminants, and genetic and metabolic disorders. To subscribe, send your name and email address to caprice.retterer@aphl.org. 'DNA robot' targets cancer cells BBC News Share
Scientists have developed and tested a "DNA robot" that delivers payloads such as drug molecules to specific cells. The container was made using a method called "DNA origami," in which long DNA chains are folded in a prescribed way. More
Super-flu: Controversy brews over scientists' creation of killer viruses Spiegel via ABC News Share
Should scientists be allowed to create extremely aggressive and highly infectious influenza viruses? Dutch virologists have done it and, in the process, triggered a fierce debate over the risks of bioterrorism and the potential release of deadly viruses. The 17th floor of the Erasmus Medical Center in the Dutch city of Rotterdam certainly doesn't look like the kind of place that could pose a threat to global security. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling in the hallway in front of the elevators, and a bar with a golden beer tap stands in the corner of the conference room. More Related story: US flu season off to latest start in decades (USA Today) Vapor-based fumigant system could prove useful in disinfecting microbiology labs, clinical labs, and histology labs Dark Daily Share
There's a new technology that bears great promise for improving existing methods of disinfecting hospital rooms and health facilities, including clinical laboratories. This technology is a vapor-based fumigant system and is coming to market with the name AsepticSure. The invention makes a strong argument for changing the way hospital rooms and other healthcare facilities are disinfected. More
Despite safety worries, work on deadly flu to be released The New York Times Share
The full details of recent experiments that made a deadly flu virus more contagious will be published, probably within a few months, despite recommendations by the United States that some information be kept secret for fear that terrorists could use it to start epidemics. The announcement, made by the World Health Organization, follows two months of heated debate about the flu research. More High platelet counts shorten ovarian cancer survival Medscape Medical News Share
One in 3 women with ovarian cancer have thrombocytosis, or high platelet counts, and are consequently at a significantly increased risk for reduced disease-specific survival, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine. More
Medicare reductions have not led to significant BMD screening decline Medscape Medical News Share
Medicare-eligible women have continued to get screened for osteoporosis, despite a reduction in reimbursement. The proportion of women diagnosed with osteoporosis after fracture (from 5.4 percent in 2005 to 8.3 percent in 2008), as opposed to by bone mineral density (BMD) screening (from 76.6 percent in 2005 to 65.0 percent in 2008), has increased, however, with the reduction in screening reimbursement. More Related story: Imaging reimbursement reduced in proposed federal budget (Medscape Medical News) New tool improves newborn screening accuracy Medscape Medical News Share
A new approach to analyzing metabolite levels in newborn blood samples decreases the likelihood of false-negatives and false-positives, according to results from a new study by Gregg Marquardt, MSS, from the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn. and colleagues. The study was published online in Genetics in Medicine. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named newborn screening for metabolic disorders one of the 10 great public health achievements of the last decade. More
A review of medical errors in laboratory diagnostics and where we are today Medscape's Laboratory Medicine Share
While many areas of healthcare are still struggling with the issue of patient safety, laboratory diagnostics has always been a forerunner in pursuing this issue. Significant progress has been made since the release of "To Err is Human." This article briefly reviews laboratory quality assessment and looks at recent statistics concerning laboratory errors. More Video games used to study cancer treatments Laboratory Equipment Share
The cure for cancer comes down to this — video games. In a research lab at Wake Forest University, biophysicist and computer scientist Samuel Cho uses graphics processing units, the technology that makes videogame images so realistic, to simulate the inner workings of human cells. Now he can see exactly how the cells live, divide and die. And that, Cho says, opens up possibilities for new targets for tumor-killing drugs. More
Genetic Parkinson's disease brain cells made in lab BBC Share
Scientists in the U.S. have successfully made human brain cells in the lab that are an exact replica of genetically caused Parkinson's disease. The breakthrough means they can now see exactly how mutations in the parkin gene cause the disease in an estimated one in 10 patients with Parkinson's. More Organic brown rice syrup: Hidden arsenic source ABC News Share
If you're shopping organic and see brown rice syrup listed first among ingredients, you may want to think twice: That product could have high levels of potentially toxic arsenic, Dartmouth researchers reported. The study found dangerous amounts of arsenic in organic powdered baby formula, intended for toddlers, whose top ingredient was brown rice syrup. That formula contained six times more arsenic than the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for the water supply. More |
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