Genomics & DNA Analysis

Unscrupulous traders are substituting meat from undesired species. We have the tools to stop them, but do we have the political will?

WADA is on a mission to rid sports of substances that impart an unfair advantage.

Three gurus describe significant breakthroughs in micro and nanoscale analytical techniques and envisage where they might take us next.

Radiocarbon dating not only supported the identification of King Richard III’s remains, it also shed ... light on his diet.

New metrics promise “game-changing" improvements to SAXS.

The use of antimicrobials as growth promoters in livestock has sparked serious concern about the development of drug-resistant strains of pathogens.

The proteome, which is the set of proteins expressed by a genome, cell, tissue or organism at a given time ... presents immense analytical challenges – but offers substantial rewards. Here, current approaches to proteomics, their strengths and their shortcomings, are explored.

It is now recognised that regarding a child as a scaled down adult to calculate a medicine dose may not be appropriate.

Introduced by Robert Guthrie in the 1960s, dried blood spot (DBS) sampling involves taking small drops ... of blood from either a finger prick (or heel prick in neonates) and depositing them on specially manufactured absorbent card where they are allowed to dry. Once dry, DBS cards can be readily transported by post for analysis since the components of the blood remain unchanged for several days, even at room temperature. For analysis, a portion of the blood spot is removed from the card and placed in a solvent to extract the analyte(s) of interest.

Dried Blood Spot (DBS) sampling is being adopted in drug development, paediatric healthcare, and, more recently, patient compliance.