The COVID-19 Pandemic – Webinars and Online Events

In this webinar, Dr. Jonathan Schmitz will provide a broad overview of PCR in diagnostic microbiology, with particular emphasis on the challenges that can face the development of new assays and impact their clinical actionability. Many of these issues - while hardly unique to SARS-CoV-2- can be highlighted by the evolving dynamics of this virus over the past three years.

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was adopted rapidly into clinical and point-of-care testing laboratories enabling prompt diagnostics, treatment and surveillance. qPCR remains the go-to method for microbial detection in areas including clinical, agricultural, veterinary and food safety diagnostics.

The polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is firmly established as the method of choice for the detection of microbial agents in the areas of clinical, veterinary and agricultural diagnostics and food safety. The current pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of local, fast and specific testing for SARS-CoV-2. It should also act as a wake-up call for the threat posed by infectious diseases spreading because of climate change, increasing antibiotic resistance and the hazard of zoonotic transfer caused by human encroachment of animal habitats. We are working on new tests, protocol and reagents to achieve faster molecular diagnostic testing both for both laboratory based and POC applications. Our target of delivering a diagnostic test result within five minutes of sampling has the potential to lead to a paradigm shift in our approach to detecting and classifying microbial pathogens in preparation for the inevitable next pandemic

RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), is essential in the RNA replication within the life cycle of the severely acute respiratory coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing the deadly respiratory induced sickness COVID-19.

In this webinar, our expert speaker Dr. Ceri Fielding, from the division of infection and immunity at Cardiff University, will discuss the need to understand how viruses interact with NK cells during the development of novel antiviral therapies.

Speaking at the Vaccine Research & Development 2022, Kyle Luttgeharm, PhD, Product Manager from Agilent presented their talk on IVT RNA production and
accurate and precise mRNA analysis.

In this webinar, Dr. Catherine Houlihan, will describe an unrecognized case of viral hemorrhagic fever imported into the UK and the important lessons learned for the emergency clinicians, GPs, virologists, infection specialists and public health doctors.

Over recent years, genomic sequencing of pathogens has emerged as a powerful tool to guide public health action by providing a deeper understanding of pathogen evolution, emerging variants and transmission dynamics. Oxford Nanopore Technologies offers an accessible, all-in-one sequencing platform that enables rapid, distributed and scalable genomic pathogen surveillance.

In this webinar, you will hear from leaders in the field of microbiology and infectious disease research, who will share their experiences in developing and implementing fast and accessible pathogen surveillance protocols with nanopore sequencing. The protocols presented in this webinar can be leveraged for targeted whole genome sequencing of different viral pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and monkeypox virus, as well as more broadly for the genomic characterization of known and novel viruses in an untargeted manner.

Speaking at The Landscape of Cancer Research 2022, Nicholas Abuid, PhD from ACROBiosystems, presented his talk on providing high purity, customizable, and bioactive reagents to support research and translation in cancer immune therapy. Their catalogue ranges in targets for various diseases.

In this webinar, we will explore the common challenges encountered by developers and manufacturers when developing PCR tests, and how these challenges can be overcome with the right technologies.