Functional Genomics Towards Personalized Health Care

The 5th Santorini Conference will take place in Thira, Greece, on September 30th , October 1st and 2nd , 2010. This meeting, held and organized by Biologie prospective and Nancy University cardiovascular genetics team, is an excellent opportunity for scientists, researchers, clinical chemists, physicians, and pharmacologists to present their scientific activities to discuss them with an expert audience, and to construct the future use of genetics. The co-organizing societies in 2010 will be the American Association of Clinical Chemistry and the Chinese Society of Laboratory Medicine.

The main topics of the meeting are the gene environment interaction in infectious and cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer with a focus on the common role of inflammation. The nutritional habits and the drug used for treating these diseases are also depending on the patient genetics; nutrigenomics and pharmacogenomics will be important topics. Outside invited speakers, time schedule provides for a presentation of 15 minutes (free communication) or 3 minutes (gong show) or posters. The scientific committee decides whether an abstract is accepted and presented as a free communication or as a short presentation in the gong show or a poster. The abstracts will be published and also some papers in international journals. Obviously, participation in the meeting without holding a presentation is possible.

You will find all the information and the registration form on the website:

www.santorini2010.org

You can download the preliminary scientific programme here.

The high expectations in speed, accuracy and precision have been achieved in an evaluation study on Arena 30 at Feldschlösschen (Carlsberg Group), Rheinfelden, Switzerland and on Aquakem 250 at BÜHLMANN Laboratories, Schönenbuch. more

The Hartziekenhuis Hospital in Belgium introduced the BÜHLMANN Calprotectin Assay for testing of faecal samples of IBD patients. A thorough evaluation provided data for the excellent technical quality of the assay as well as the high sensitivity of our monoclonal assay for the patients tested. The data of the evaluation also resulted in a presentation at the annual meeting of the Belgian Society For Clinical Biology.

In January 2010 BÜHLMANN starts the distribution of the innovative diagnostic products of BioPorto in Switzerland , Austria and France . The main product of BioPorto is the NGAL ELISA which is the most important biomarker for direct diagnosis of acute kidney injury (AKI).

NGAL begins to rise within an hour of AKI, whereas current diagnostic methods only detect the consequences of damage well after the event.

The NGAL product portfolio of BioPorto contains a rapid CE marked ELISA allowing a raised level of NGAL to be rapidly determined in urine or plasma sample. For research samples the slower but more sensitive ELISA is to be preferred. For pharmaceutical animal research BioPorto is offering three different ELISA variants for mouse, rat or dog samples.

Besides the Cystatin C assay for accurate diagnosis of chronic kidney disease (CKD), BÜHLMANN now offers this remarkable addition for AKI complementing the kidney disease portfolio.

BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG participates at the upcoming Arab Health in Dubai, 25 - 28 January 2010 (http://www.arabhealthonline.com), together with its distributor for the Middle East, Bioactiva Diagnostica.

This participation is a unique chance to get first hand information and support for BÜHLMANN Products. We invite customers to visit us at the Bioactiva Diagnostics Booth in the Sheik Maktoum Hall, booth MF 31, or even better to fix an appointment (info@buhlmannlabs.ch).

BÜHLMANN will be represented with its COO, Dr. Thomas Hafen. We are looking forward to be in contact with current and prospective customers and to highlight some of our products like Calprotectin. We are however also interested to get in contact with new distributors serving some of the rapidly growing markets on the African or Asian continent.

BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG is proud to introduce its latest sister company BUHLMANN Italia srl, to go live on January 1^st, 2010. The new company will serve all of the BÜHLMANN customers in Italy and significantly strengthen the presence of BÜHLMANN in the Italian market.

Dr.ssa Daniela Maioli, Director Marketing&Sales of BUHLMANN Italia srl: "The new company allows us to be even closer to our customers and to serve them better. BÜHLMANN has excellently developed in Italy in the last years and more and more hospitals and laboratories request the BÜHLMANN high quality products. That BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG have decided to start an own company in Italy reflects the importance of this market and of our customers."

Thomas Hafen, COO of BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG: "Italian customers are known as very experienced, professional and innovative. They are always looking for new, quality products and innovations - attributes BÜHLMANN stands for. BUHLMANN Italia srl is our chance to use this potential even better. Beyond this, BUHLMANN Italia srl strengthens our position as a leading niche supplier of clinical routine diagnostics and high quality distributor of IVDs in immunochemistry and molecular diagnostics."

BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG was founded in 1976 in Basel / Switzerland. BUHLMANN Italia srl is the third BÜHLMANN sister company, after BÜHLMANN in Austria GmbH (1992) and BÜHLMANN France SAS (2002). Together with BÜHLMANN Germany, the BÜHLMANN Group now covers up to 70% of the European IVD Market with direct sales channels to laboratories and hospitals.

BÜHLMANN is specialised in high quality niches of clinical routine IVDs, and offers a number of unique or gold standard products to the market. Product range includes leading cellular allergy test Flow2 CAST^®, the BÜHLMANN GanglioCombi^® Product group or the gold standard Melatonin products. Recent releases are a unique Parkinson MeTIQ ELISA or the fastest and easiest GHB Drug of Abuse tests (“k.o. drops”) for open channels of clinical chemistry analyzers. For Calprotectin, BÜHLMANN cooperates in Italy with Meridian Biosciences Europe srl, Milan, namely for the promotion of Quantum Blue^® Calprotectin - the only quantitative rapid Calprotectin test so far available on the market.

In collaboration with the Basel University of Applied Life Sciences (Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz) we developed in the field of Neurology / NeuroImmunology and in vitro diagnostics: Parkinson-MeTIQ ELISA  it is designed for the quantitative determination of 1-MeTIQ (1-Methyl-1,2,3,4-Tetrahydroisoquinoline) and it’s meant to be measured in patients and animal models with Parkinson Disease (PD).

Immediate or non-immediate hypersensitivity reactions to contrast media occur in about 3% of intravenous Contrast Media applications. They are a concern for radiologists and cardiologists. The basophil activation test is very helpful for diagnosis of patients with Contrast Media hypersensitivity.

Previous reactors have an increased risk to develop repeated reactions. At the time beeing there are no reliable in-vitro tests for routine diagnosis of contrast media hypersensitivity. Now the Flow2 CAST assays offer a clinical cut-off to detect Contrast Media allergic patents with negative skin tests with Sensitivity around 60% and specificity of 90%.

BÜHLMANN now introduced 8 new contrast media allergens to our allergen portfolio. Detailed informations on these allergens are described in the single allergen data sheets.

BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG, Basel, Switzerland, announced today to have signed a Medical Adviser Agreement with Dr. Arne Roseth, Oslo, Norway, in order to support BÜHLMANN’s global initiative to promote fecal Calprotectin in diagnosis and therapy follow up of inflammatory conditions of the intestine.

Dr. Roseth is a US-Norwegian gastroenterologist with more than 15 years of practical experience in the use of Calprotectin and one of the global key opinion leaders for the application of this novel biomarker. “The cooperation with BÜHLMANN supports my goal to ease the daily life of patients with Crohn’s disease,” comments Dr. Roseth, “and to support clinicians around the world in using a simple, reliable and cost-effective diagnostic tool to differentiate between IBS and IBD.”

BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG is an independent Swiss manufacturer of high quality IVDs for niches in clinical routine diagnostics. The BÜHLMANN Calprotectin product group includes a Calprotectin ELISA as well as Quantum Blue®, an easy to use Point-of Care rapid test system.

Calprotectin, a GI inflammatory marker, has a fundamental role in the differentiating between Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Patients suffering from IBS do not have increased fecal Calprotectin values. Fecal Calprotectin concentrations, as measured by the BÜHLMANN Calprotectin assays, are significantly elevated in patients with IBD and correlate well with endoscopic and histological assessment of disease activity.

Over two million patients in Europe suffer from IBD, and it is estimated that IBS affects more than 30 million Europeans. This novel and simple test will avoid unnecessary colon endoscopies for Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn's disease and will minimize discomfort while offering substantial savings for patients and health systems.

The agreement of BÜHLMANN with Dr. Roseth adds to the global outreach strategy and recent cooperation agreement with Meridian Bioscience Europe and other specialized IVD suppliers in the Field.

Contact: Dr. Thomas Hafen, COO, BÜHLMANN Laboratories AG

+41 61 487 12 24 (office)

Determination of GHB (liquid Ecstasy) in human samples was a challenge until today. Expensive and laborious chromatographic methods did not allow the prompt determination of suspicious samples. The BÜHLMANN GHB enzymatic assay will give the toxicology laboratories a quick, easy and cost efficient screening tool to investigate even samples with lower suspicion.

The GHB enzymatic assay is available now as a CE marked in vitro diagnostics. Evaluated and CE marked protocols for the most important clinical chemistry analyser will be available soon.