About every 22 seconds, someone dies from Tuberculosis. As the deadliest bacterial infection worldwide, Tuberculosis causes or contributes to 1-1.5 million deaths per year, recently surpassing HIV as the deadliest single infectious agent. Around ten million people become sick with…
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Although it is largely forgotten today, just five years before the Coronavirus Pandemic, the Zika virus was making headlines. In early 2016, the World Health Organization declared the Zika epidemic a public health emergency, as evidence mounted that the Zika…
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A typical flu season presents significant challenges for medical laboratories with increased demand and pressure for providing quick and accurate diagnostic testing. But what happens when you combine this already demanding time with the global COVID-19 pandemic? No one can…
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The Critical Role of QC in Every Stage of Assay Development and Usage For anyone of us involved in medical laboratory or public health laboratory testing, we understand the critical importance of clinical quality control (QC). With the ongoing fallout…
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For a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2, an inactivated whole virus control is the gold standard for accuracy. For labs that opt for other control formats, synthetic RNA controls can provide many of the same qualities as inactivated whole virus…
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The COVID-19 pandemic has put increasing pressure on front-line healthcare workers to deliver fast and accurate test results. For any clinical diagnostic testing, laboratory professionals need assurance that sample preparation methods, as well as the instrumentation used to complete testing,…
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I think by now it is safe to say that we are truly living in unprecedented times with the current Coronavirus pandemic. The majority of us have never experienced anything even remotely similar to this in our lives before. If…
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By Marylou Gibson, Ph.D Adapted from a post that originally appeared on LinkedIn. Of the more than 55 RT-PCR Test kits or assays currently available under Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA) by the FDA, few target the same genes. Many more…
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Positive controls are critical for ensuring diagnostic accuracy. This post examines reasons why positive controls are necessary, even during emergency situations.