https://medicalxpress.com/biomedical-technology-news/ en-us Latest medical news and research in Laboratory medicine A small pilot study led by a Rutgers researcher has found differences in blood proteins between people experiencing high and low levels of pain from sickle cell disease, findings that may inform research on new treatments and better pain management. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-sickle-cell-pain-involve-previously.html Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:40:01 EDT news710523541 A widespread failure to validate research antibodies before use is estimated to lead to the avoidable waste of millions of animal and human tissue samples worldwide, and an international expert panel has reached consensus on how to address the problem, according to two studies published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Harvinder Virk of the University of Leicester, U.K., and colleagues. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-poor-antibody-validation-millions-biological.html Tue, 06 Oct 2026 14:00:16 EDT news710436542 Researchers at Children's Hospital Colorado (Children's Colorado) and the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine have published one of the largest studies to date evaluating advanced laboratory testing for mitochondrial disease, providing new evidence that a small skin biopsy can often help diagnose these rare and complex conditions without the need for more invasive procedures. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-international-validates-invasive-approach-mitochondrial.html Tue, 06 Oct 2026 12:20:01 EDT news710506741 Even a routine blood test may come with an overnight fasting requirement. Many medical practices still ask patients to go without food for 8–12 hours before blood is drawn. While the protocol was originally recommended for glucose and lipid testing, over time, it became the default requirement for almost all routine blood panels. Why it is still followed for such a broad range of routine lab tests is a question that researchers from South Korea asked in a recent study. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-fast-blood.html Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:00:21 EDT news710499137 Bloodstream infections are a persistent threat to hospitalized patients, and those caused by fungi are particularly dangerous. Candida species are responsible for most invasive fungal infections worldwide and rank among the leading causes of hospital-acquired bloodstream infections overall. Because different fungal species can respond differently to antifungal drugs, doctors strive to correctly identify the fungus responsible for a given infection before initiating treatment. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-dna-sequencing-fungal-bloodstream-infections.html Mon, 05 Oct 2026 10:40:10 EDT news710414402 What if checking medication levels were as simple as enjoying a lollipop? A candy-coated device called Lollylab could provide the answer. In ACS Sensors, researchers describe how the lollipop's stem transfers saliva to a sensor that measures acetaminophen levels. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-candy-coated-lollylab-saliva-medication.html Mon, 05 Oct 2026 09:20:13 EDT news710410561 Glioma brain tumors are diffuse, so surgeons usually cannot excise all of the cancer during surgery. Currently, surgeons remove as much of the tumor as they can and then analyze the tumor's borders after surgery. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-mass-spectrometry-faster-edges-brain.html Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:20:01 EDT news710152381 A simple urine test devised by researchers at Stanford Medicine and the VA Palo Alto Health Care System can diagnose bladder cancer more accurately than current standard methods. The test also allows physicians not only to assess the cancer's response to treatment but also to predict whether immunotherapy or chemotherapy is likely to be most effective for each patient. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-rna-urine-outperforms-standard-bladder.html Fri, 02 Oct 2026 05:00:01 EDT news710067602 Harvard Medical School researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a new pathway that regulates the production of fetal hemoglobin, a form of hemoglobin that normally gets replaced soon after birth by adult hemoglobin. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-sickle-cell-disease-beta-thalassemia.html Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:20:21 EDT news709993621 Spatial transcriptomics (ST) shows which genes are being expressed and where within a tissue. Spatial metabolomics (SM), on the other hand, maps the location of metabolites—small molecules produced or used by cells—within tissue. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-platform-gene-metabolites-tissue-sample.html Tue, 29 Sep 2026 16:40:05 EDT news709913821 Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and the Technical University of Dresden have tested a new approach for investigating disease-related changes in body odor. Using laser-based photoacoustic spectroscopy, they analyzed volatile organic compounds in simple body swabs. An initial study revealed differences between samples from healthy individuals and those from people with Parkinson's disease, COVID-19, and other diseases. The results, published in Scientific Reports, demonstrate the method's potential for faster preliminary screenings in the future. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-diseases-body-odor-laser-technology.html Tue, 29 Sep 2026 15:20:15 EDT news709911522 Minutes count when a patient with a stroke arrives at a hospital emergency room. Doctors stand ready to treat the patient, but whether medication can dissolve the blood clot depends on what the patient is already taking. Even if a blood sample is rushed to the laboratory, results can take up to an hour to arrive. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-bedside-blood-results-minutes-urgent.html Mon, 28 Sep 2026 16:20:05 EDT news709827121 Aging progressively affects how our bodies function. Among other effects, it reduces the ability of the hematopoietic system—the organs and tissues responsible for producing blood cells—to maintain adequate blood cell production. Understanding and measuring this process is especially important for studying how blood stem cells age and identifying ways to preserve or restore their function. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-ai-aging-blood-stem-cells.html Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:01 EDT news709558018 A newborn can look perfectly healthy, pass a hearing test and still carry an infection that may affect hearing or development later in childhood. That is the challenge posed by congenital cytomegalovirus, or cCMV, one of the most common infections passed from a mother to a baby during pregnancy. Most babies born with the virus show no obvious signs at birth, making it difficult to know which children may need closer monitoring. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-routine-newborn-screening-cytomegalovirus-infections.html Sun, 27 Sep 2026 17:00:06 EDT news709467087 A test developed by researchers at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research has identified the genetic cause of inherited muscle disease in people who remained without answers after years, sometimes decades, of standard testing. It is the first test of its kind in the world. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-dna-sequencing-patients-inherited-muscle.html Fri, 25 Sep 2026 12:00:14 EDT news709553402 With a lot of ingenuity, some creative engineering and a few off-the-shelf items, a University of Florida team led by a virologist and an engineer has created an inexpensive, quick and accurate handheld device that can detect seven mosquito-borne illnesses. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-portable-device-rapid-mosquito-borne.html Fri, 25 Sep 2026 10:40:06 EDT news709549517 Researchers at Wits University, South Africa's National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) and University Medical Center Utrecht have developed a new way to help people whose HIV viral load increased while they were taking the highly effective standard antiretroviral treatment dolutegravir (DTG). https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-hiv-drug-resistance-routine-south.html Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:40:13 EDT news709546435 Patients with early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease may be prescribed anti-amyloid therapy, which can help clear the sticky clumps of amyloid protein in the brain that characterize Alzheimer's. While these treatments cannot cure Alzheimer's or restore cognitive function to normal, they have been shown to slow the progression of the disease. Their effects may vary, and clinicians have had no way to monitor treatment in an individual patient besides expensive brain scans. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-blood-proteins-shift-alzheimer-treatment.html Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:30:01 EDT news709483322 A study of blood samples collected up to nine years before a cancer diagnosis found changes in the DNA that captured the body's response to early traces of cancer development. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-blood-early-cancer-years-diagnosis.html Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:40:05 EDT news709381081 New research led by Aston University's Dr. Ghaniah Hassan-Smith has found a new way to diagnose infections of the central nervous system, such as meningitis and encephalitis, that can be difficult to identify using conventional methods. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-filters-genetic-sequencing-flag-meningitis.html Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:20:07 EDT news709380602 In August 2024, the World Health Organization declared the mpox upsurge in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its spread to neighboring countries a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The emergence of a new strain and its rapid spread across eastern DRC, and later to other African countries and beyond, made reliable diagnosis essential for understanding the scale of the epidemic and guiding vaccination and other public health measures. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-positive-mpox-false.html Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:40:02 EDT news709284841 Cornell researchers have developed a portable diagnostic test that can simultaneously detect and distinguish Ebola and Lassa, two serious viruses whose early symptoms can be difficult to tell apart. The research could potentially give health workers a faster way to identify which virus is present and make lifesaving decisions. The work is part of a broader effort by the researchers to move diagnostic capabilities out of centralized laboratories and into portable devices that can be used by health workers in the field. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-portable-distinguish-ebola-lassa-lab.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 13:40:01 EDT news709210452 Cytological tests are a common method of screening for cancer cells in stained cell samples. Using a microscope, pathologists examine cells collected from bodily fluids, looking for telltale signs of malignancy, like enlarged nuclei or abnormal cell shapes. Owing to their minimally invasive nature, these tests are widely used for early cancer screening and diagnosis. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-machine-cancer-cells-based.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:40:07 EDT news708793561 It was mid-2020, and Patrick Varilly, a software engineer and data scientist, was stuck at home, eager to help the world navigate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He reconnected with Pardis Sabeti, a core institute member of the Broad Institute who was at the forefront of analyzing how the SARS-CoV-2 virus was spreading, and with Ben Fry, her longstanding collaborator and principal at Fathom Information Design, a software firm known for tackling complex data problems. Varilly had worked closely with Sabeti and Fry at MIT more than 20 years earlier. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-software-rapidly-tracks-viral-variants.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:20:07 EDT news708786756 A little-known chronic lung disease is silently emerging as a growing public health threat in the U.S. and around the world. Nontuberculous mycobacteria—a group of 200 known environmental bacteria found in soil and water, including household plumbing—can cause chronic, tuberculosis-like lung infections. NTM lung disease afflicts as many as 300,000 Americans a year. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-diagnosis-hard-lung-infections.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:00:21 EDT news708778382 To defeat multidrug-resistant superbugs, bacterial defenses must be confronted wherever they may emerge, from basic genetic mutations in a laboratory to complex real-world transmission in hospital rooms. A new trio of studies published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and researched by the laboratory of Barry N. Kreiswirth, Ph.D., at the Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) demonstrates how an integrated approach might yet expose and overcome these diverse survival mechanisms. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-superbugs-evade-antibiotics-vulnerable-patients.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:00:01 EDT news708780001 Preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of pregnancy-related death. Even after a healthy delivery, mother and baby can go home only to show signs of a postpartum hypertensive disorder days or weeks later. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-ai-pathologists-preeclampsia-advancing-diagnosis.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 11:40:04 EDT news708688741 Scientists researching Alzheimer's disease and neurodegeneration have been playing a difficult game. Their scientific playbook has been limited by the available resources that, while capturing loads of genes, proteins and cells, have been missing something: microproteins. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-microproteins-playbook-alzheimer.html Mon, 14 Sep 2026 18:20:03 EDT news708624782