The molecular diagnostic approach for infectious disease such as STDs, tropical, and respiratory disease has seen significant development in the past twelve months, driven by a demand for better, faster, higher sensitivity assays, that can detect asymptomatic carriers. Traditionally, lab-based tests using blood samples have been the mainstay for molecular testing, however home-based, extraction-free tests, using alternative sample types (saliva, urine, stool) are now highly sought after, but pose significant challenges in assay development for both lab-based and point of care (POC) applications.

In this webinar you will learn about:

• New nucleic acid amplification chemistries that simplify direct detection
• Optimizing assay performance per sample types (e.g. blood, saliva, urine, stool)
• The latest technologies that can reduce your cold-chain management

Presenters
Michele Amasio, Ph.D.
Research and Development Senior Manager

Steve Hawkins
Ph.D. – Product Marketing Manager

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of point-of-care molecular technologies that offer quick sample to results, high sensitivity, lower cost and widespread accessibility.

This webinar will cover new market-leading reagent solutions for loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays, which simplify assay development, speed up assay turnaround time, and deliver highly sensitive and specific amplification without DNA or RNA extraction.

Presenters
Elda Iljazi Ph.D.
Senior Scientist Meridian Bioscience

Liquid biopsy is a non-invasive alternative to tissue biopsy based on ultra-sensitive detection of tumor-derived material such as ctRNA and ctDNA from biofluids, including blood, urine, stool, saliva, and sputum. qPCR based liquid biopsy possesses several advantages in cost and throughput, when compared to other technologies like NGS and ddPCR. In this talk, we will discuss Meridian’s new advances in inhibitor tolerant qPCR based liquid biopsy, that reduces the cost and complexity of these assays, while enabling ultra-sensitive detection from very low concentration cancer markers.

Presenters
Steve Hawkins
Ph.D. – Product Marketing Manager

Michele Amasio, Ph.D.
Research and Development Senior Manager

Direct qPCR has many advantages over traditional qPCR workflows that involve DNA/RNA extraction. However, achieving high sensitivity with direct qPCR using whole blood samples has been challenging due to the presence of qPCR inhibitors within the sample (such as heme, salts, and proteins), and preservatives or anti-coagulants that are added during the sample collection process. The inhibitors can negatively impact the performance of the enzymes used in qPCR and RT-qPCR and they limit the amount of sample that can be added to the reaction, overall reducing the assay sensitivity and accuracy. In this talk, we will be discussing Meridian’s novel solution to overcome PCR inhibitors in direct qPCR and RT-qPCR, enabling greater sensitivity for direct detection from whole blood, improving assay reproducibility, and reducing assay development time.

Presenters
Thomas Fouqueau, PhD
Acting Team Leader, R&D, Meridian Life Science

Rachel Currier, PhD
Acting Team Leader, R&D, Meridian Life Science

Traditionally, qPCR and RT-qPCR diagnostic assays include DNA/RNA extraction and purification steps to remove inhibitors from the PCR reactions, to meet the assay specificity and sensitivity. However, these steps are laborious, expensive, and time-consuming. To overcome this, Meridian has developed inhibitor tolerant mixes specifically for blood, saliva, urine, and stool. Meridian’s Direct Sample-Specific qPCR Mixes are the first mixes on the market overcoming the limitations of inhibitors inherent in the various clinical specimens, for ultimate assay sensitivity and specificity.

In this webinar our speakers will discuss:

The optimization strategy and methodology that have led to the development of these specimen-specific mixes, which have superior performance compared to other products on the market and enable faster, more sensitive, and cost-effective diagnostic assays.

Speakers:
Dr. Rachel Currier- Acting Team Leader, Research & Development
Dr. Thomas Fouqueau- Acting Team Leader, Research & Development

Moderator
Dr. Steve Hawkins, Product Marketing Manager

Molecular point of care (POC) tests are rapidly gaining traction in the diagnostic market, especially for infectious diseases. While LAMP and qPCR testing share common advantages such as quick turnaround time and high sensitivity and specificity, LAMP has additional benefits, making it possible for testing to be carried out essentially anywhere – from an airport to school, to a remote medical clinic.

In this webinar you will learn about:

• The new advances in the LAMP and qPCR assay development for POC
• How to speed up sample-to-result and eliminate the need for cold-chain management

Speakers:
Elda Iljazi, Ph.D. – R&D Senior Scientist, Meridian Bioscience
Dr. Michele Amasio – Research and Development Manager

qPCR and RT-qPCR are widely used in the development of molecular diagnostic assays with applications in human diagnostics, animal health, environmental, plant and food testing.

Lyophilization is a common technique used for creating ambient temperature stable PCR assays. However, the process is time consuming, complex to optimize and requires expensive equipment. Meridian’s new air-dryable technology replaces lyophilization with a fast, simple, and inexpensive oven-drying process, making it ideal for manufacturing room-temperature stable, highly sensitive and cost-effective molecular diagnostic assays.

This webinar will cover:

• How Meridian’s new air-dryable technology compares to traditional lyophilization
• The impact of the air-drying process on qPCR performance
• The combination of air-drying with inhibitor tolerance technology in qPCR assays

Presenters:
Dr Steve Hawkins – Product Marketing Manager
Dr Michele Amasio – Research and Development Manager

This webinar will cover:

• Create ambient temperature stable assays without the need for lyophilization
• Simplify workflow with direct qPCR for crude plant lysates
• Improve assay sensitivity for better LOD
• Quantify the presence of GMOs more accurately
• Speed up sample to results

Presenter:
Dr Steve Hawkins – Product Marketing Manager