New Infectious Disease Research Panels Detect Over 90 Different Pathogens

To effectively study outbreaks and determine disease etiology where pathogens are similar, analytically sensitive panels are needed to support laboratory research. Now, new infectious disease research panels can enable rapid and accurate detection and categorization for investigating microorganisms that cause respiratory, vaginal, urinary, gastrointestinal, and sexually transmitted diseases.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (Waltham, MA; USA) has launched TrueMark Infectious Disease Research Panels which are analytically sensitive, real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) syndromic panels for the analysis of a wide range of infectious disease pathogens. Leveraging real-time PCR technology, the predefined and customizable panel options allow researchers to choose from more than 90 different bacterial and viral strain assays to generate results within four hours from taking the samples. The assays use pre-spotted and dried down TaqMan plates, which are designed to enable easy set-up and increased accuracy.

Testing can be done from nasopharyngeal swabs or nasopharyngeal aspirate, vaginal, genital and lesion swabs or urine samples. These samples can also be prepared using workflows that currently exist in most labs that use the Applied Biosystems MagMAX Viral/Pathogen kits automated on a KingFisher Purification System instrument and mixed with the Applied Biosystems multiplex master mix onto a 96-well or 384-well plate. The panels are optimized for use on QuantStudio qPCR systems with verified sample-to-answer workflow and provide easy to read results with the Applied Biosystems QuantStudio Design and Analysis Software v2.6.

“With the TrueMark Infectious Disease Research Panels, laboratories can choose either the readymade panels or create their own custom panels to suit their needs,” said Dr. Manoj Gandhi, senior medical director of Genetic Testing Solutions at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “By providing the flexibility to choose panels for researching polymicrobial infections, laboratories can now expand their testing menus using existing instrumentation and offer the benefits of PCR testing for researching a broad range of markers that can cause infectious disease.”

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