Contents In this issue Cover story 8 News & numbers 22


The headlines and vital statistics impacting healthcare.


Diagnostics 10 The positive test


The Covid-19 pandemic provided the impetus for unprecedented speed in the development of testing methods, as the industry collaborated, and regulators worldwide supported their efforts with emergency approval pathways. But now we’ve seen what’s possible under the right circumstances, is there any going back to the way things were before? Abi Millar speaks to Karen Taylor, director of the UK Centre for Health Solutions at Deloitte, and Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic, to find out what the future of diagnostic testing for infectious diseases could look like.


13 In case of emergency Abbott


15 Comprehensive line blots for myositis diagnostics EUROIMMUN


16 The silent kidneys Abbott


Practical Patient Care / www.practical-patient-care.com 32 5


University of Nottingham, to discover how research teams are using phages as a diagnostic tool.


25 Testing for treatment Thermo Fisher Scientific


26 Speed without compromise Abacus Diagnostica


29 Next generation precision multiplexing Bruker Microbiology & Diagnostics


30 More digitalisation MEDICA and COMPAMED 2022 event preview


Oncology


32 The paradigm shift Checkpoint inhibitors have


18 Automation in Micro labs Beckman Coulter


21 Combat tuberculosis (TB) Oxford Immunotec


22 The next phage


While bacteria are responsible for a laundry list of diseases, they have their own enemy in the form of bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). In turn, bacteriophages might be used to detect their host bacteria and aid in diagnosing disease. Abi Millar speaks to Dr Thomas Edwards, a post-doctoral research assistant at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and Dr Cath Rees, professor of microbiology at the


revolutionised cancer care. Stimulating the immune system is now as much of a focus in oncology as killing or surgically removing cancers. It’s a more holistic approach, but its side- effects can be just as harrowing. Isabel Ellis asks K Dane Wittrup, Carbon P. Dubbs professor in Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering at MIT, and David A Scheinberg, head of Experimental Therapeutics at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, how new targeting strategies can make immunotherapy easier to bear.


Infection control


35 Monkeying around It’s always been a cliché that bad things happen in pairs – and the arrival of


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53