New service agreement between Owlstone Medical and AstraZeneca, Biosensis launch new BDNF/proBDNF biomarker kit and the 8th Conference on Current Trends in Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography is announced
The week in brief:
Owlstone Medical (Cambridge, UK) to provide AstraZeneca (Cambridge, UK) access to Breath Biopsy Services for studying Asthma and COPD
Rhiannon Finnie (Future Science Group)
Owlstone Medical (Cambridge, UK), a diagnostics company developing a breathalyzer for disease, recently announced it has signed a service agreement with AstraZeneca (Cambridge, UK), a global biopharmaceutical company. The collaboration will explore how breath can be used to identify novel biomarkers and differentiate between disease phenotypes relevant for asthma and COPD.
Breath Biopsy offers a rapid, non-invasive approach to identify breath-based biomarkers that could help to stratify and monitor patients ensuring they receive the correct treatment at the optimal dosage.
Owlstone Medical has reported that it will provide AstraZeneca with access to its Breath Biopsy Services, including development of classification algorithms, to help identify breath biomarkers across asthma and COPD. Identifying disease phenotypes and treatable traits allows the underlying heterogeneity of obstructive lung disease to be explored and personalized treatments to be given.
Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, concluded: “This agreement with AstraZeneca demonstrates our unrivalled expertise in breath biomarkers. Through our Breath Biopsy Services we are well positioned to assist the AstraZeneca team to explore how Breath Biopsy can identify novel biomarkers for asthma and COPD and to optimize their application in precision medicine.”
Source: www.owlstonemedical.com/about/news/2018/apr/9/owlstone-medical-provides-services-to-astrazeneca/
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Biosensis expand biomarker capability with launch of new BDNF/proBDNF kit
(Georgi Makin, Future Science Group)
Biosensis (Thebarton, Australia) have continued to expand their range of RapidTM ELISA Kits with the launch of the new BDNF/proBDNF Combo Kit, which is described to be optimized for both serum and plasma analysis. Laboratories will also be able to assay the two isomers without cross-contamination.
Over 1000 publications have reported BDNF as an important biomarker for many neurological and psychiatric diseases, and Biosensis has reportedly worked closely with leading research laboratories as well as regulators to build the first CE-Marked BDNF ELISA kit for diagnostic use.
“The new Combo kit allows researchers in Academia and Industry to achieve accurate measurements of these two important blood biomarkers in less than 4 hours,” Markus Smolny (Biosensis) who heads laboratory services, commented. “Extensive in-house and independent, external laboratory evaluation has shown that the Biosensis RapidTM ELISA kits provide the highest level of quality, accuracy, reproducibility and reliability available [1].”
Reference:
[1] Polacchini A, Metelli G, Francavilla R, Baj G, Florean M, Mascaretti LG, Tongiorgi E. A method for reproducible measurements of serum BDNF: comparison of the performance of six commercial assays. Sci Rep. doi: 10.1038/srep17989 (2015)
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Conference Series LLC Ltd announces 8th Conference on Current Trends in Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography
The conference will take place in Columbus (OH, USA) from October 31 to November 1 2018, with the theme of ‘Innovations and Current Trends with mass spectrometry and chromatography’.
More information about the event can be found at: https://massspectra.com/
For more information about upcoming bioanalytical meetings, conferences, workshops and events, visit the Bioanalysis Zone events pages, here.
Source: www.pharmiweb.com/pressreleases/pressrel.asp?ROW_ID=273169
