August 2022

Wastewater disease monitoring

What can we learn from analysing wastewater and what potential roles could the surveillance method play in the future? We look at the issues.

The big question: Should specialist biomedical scientists be redefined?

This month we ask “Should specialist biomedical scientists be redefined?”

Crucial collaboration

Understanding how the health of humans and animals is connected provides vital understanding of viruses. Professor Nicola Lewis, the new Director of the Worldwide Influenza Centre, highlights her priorities in the role.

“Rare cells capable of transforming into blood cancer”

Dysfunction involving an unusual type of thymocyte cell found in small amounts in every person may be the reason why some people develop a form of leukaemia called T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL), it is claimed.

Covid-19 fattens body cells to fuel viral takeover

The virus that causes COVID-19 performs a takeover of the body’s fat-processing system, creating cellular storehouses of fat empowering the virus to hijack the body’s molecular machinery and cause disease.

Tech news: August 2022

This month's top tech news stories

Infectious periods in vaccinated individuals

To examine the infectious periods in vaccinated individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants, US researchers collected daily anterior nasal swabs for at least 10 days from a group of college students and staff for reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test and culture and with antigen rapid diagnostic testing (RDT) on a subset of individuals.

UTIs and bacterial shapeshifting behaviour

Around 80% of UTIs are caused by uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC), which is increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

Nanopore sequencing for rare genetic disorders

Using nanopore sequencing investigators can accurately detect specific genomic disorders in a fraction of the time it takes to conduct traditional and molecular cytogenetic testing.

Diffuse optics for diagnosticsDiffuse optics for diagnostics

Among the optics-based tools used in diagnostics, diffuse optics (DO) is rapidly emerging as one of the most attractive technologies.

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