News

News Archive for 2009

January

08 Jan 2009 - New list of European National Contacts for Cytogenetics

CEQA provided us with a list of new national contacts for cytogenetics in Europe More...

19 Jan 2009 - Technology assessment report ready

The report on 'Automated DNA extraction: Integration of the Chemagen Magnetic DNA Separator with the Perkin Elmer MultiProbe II Liquid Handler' can now be downloaded. More...

26 Jan 2009 - EuroGentest is organising its first Symposium on Quality & Laboratory Management

Leuven Statue Topics such as laboratory quality assurance and accreditation, which are very important in medical laboratories, are not commonly addressed in (inter)national scientific meetings. This symposium aims to respond to this shortcoming and bring together people working in diagnostic laboratories. More...

05 Jan 2009 - Another successful Czech accreditation: Professor Milan Macek receives certificate

Accreditation certificate Milan Macek On Friday December 19 the ISO 15189 accreditation certificate was officially handed over to use by the director of the Czech Institute for Accreditation (www.cai.cz). More...

17 Jan 2009 - Server updated

The server is currently undergoing an update. Some parts of the site are expected to be off-line for a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience. More...

20 Jan 2009 - Workshop Patent Licensing in Medical Biotechnology in Europe in Leuven coming up February 6th

CIR The Centre is organizing a workshop on February 6, 2009 where the results of the survey on "Patent Licensing in Medical Biotechnology in Europe", will be presented and discussed with experts from industry, university and hospitals. More... Exit this website

February

02 Feb 2009 - Fellowships 2009

A fellowship for young investigators allowing them to be trained in one of the labs of the participants is very important for the NoE. Due to budgetary limits this year, EuroGentest will however not be able to support any fellowships in 2009. We regret to have to make this decision and hope that other sources of support can be found for those who would like to benefit form training in an expert lab. More...

March

03 Mar 2009 - Conjunct research project between the Ecuadorian Government and the Cuban delegation

The Institute of Biomedicine of the Medical Faculty of the Catholic University of Guayaquil Ecuador will participate in a National Epidemiological Research regarding Disabilities with the aid of Cuban investigators More...

13 Mar 2009 - Second Annual European DNA Day Essay Contest for High School Students

The essay contest is one of several activities held to promote knowledge and understanding of genetics among teachers and their students. More... Exit this website

20 Mar 2009 - ERNDIM Spring Newsletter

ERNDIM Logo There are a number of changes taking place in the ERNDIM EQA schemes and the website. We also want to bring you up to date with the progress towards accreditation for ERNDIM. This is going to be an increasingly important issue since organisations responsible for laboratory accreditation encourage, and may eventually insist, that EQA is only provided by accredited organisations. More...

04 Mar 2009 - Job opportunity for Regulatory Affairs Officer (EDMA, based in Brussels)

The ideal candidate is seeking to develop their potential within a dynamic nine person team. The candidate will become an expert in IVD Regulatory issues. More...

19 Mar 2009 - Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) best practice meeting 23rd of June, Antwerp, Belgium.

The EMQN in conjunction with EuroGentest is organising a Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia best practice meeting for genetic diagnostics. The aim of the meeting is to develop best practice guidelines for the molecular genetic diagnosis of CAH. More... Exit this website

24 Mar 2009 - LabSight: New diagnostic genetics technologies forum launched

LabSight, a new online forum specifically for professionals in diagnostic genetics to share and discuss new or revised technologies. LabSight was launched in March 2009 and will run as a pilot for around a year, following which evaluation will tell its benefits to the professional community. More... Exit this website

April

01 Apr 2009 - Pilot EQA in Constitutional Molecular Karyotyping (Microarrays / arrayCGH)

As part of a joint collaboration between CEQA and EMQN, they are offering this pilot EQA in 2009. To participate in this pilot scheme please register for the EQA from your respective website www.ceqa-cyto.eu (Cytogenetic labs) and www.emqn.org.uk (Molecular Genetics labs). The pilot is free of charge although if you haven’t registered with either CEQA or EMQN before there is a small annual administration fee to oin. More...

May

04 May 2009 - NEW - First Workshop on accreditation for beginners in French

Workshop Atelier d’initiation - Accréditation dans les laboratoires de génétique en français More...

12 May 2009 - Proposal regarding the Health Institution exemption of the IVD Directive

EuroGentest proposes only Accredited Labs Should Be Allowed to Use Laboratory-Developed Assays. The detailed proposal is open for comments and can be viewed here. More...

28 May 2009 - Diagnostic method validation: High resolution melting (HRM) of small amplicons genotyping for the most common variants in the MTHFR gene

We have successfully validated HRM of small amplicons using common MTHFR variants as a model. We proved that this technique is highly reliable for routine diagnostics and our diagnostic validation strategy can serve as a model for other applications. More...

04 May 2009 - French patient leaflets now available for download

Patient leaflet small The translations continue and cover 23 languages so far. Along with the effort of making more translations, new leaflets are being developed as we speak about: 'Carrier Testing', 'Predictive Testing', 'Predictive Testing for Inherited Cancer' and 'What Happens in a Genetics Laboratory?' More...

08 May 2009 - Satellite meeting on Innovative Techniques in Genome Diagnostics at ESHG

Unit 5 will hold its 4th satellite meeting on Innovative Techniques in Genome Diagnostics at the ESHG on Monday the 25th of May. Download the programme here. More...

18 May 2009 - EuroGentest GA 2009 CANCELLED

The EuroGentest steering committee members have decided that the EuroGentest project will be extended for 6 months without budget. More...

June

24 Jun 2009 - Update - Definitions of Genetic Testing in European and other Legal Documents

Definitions genetic testing This document by Orsolya Varga and Jorge Sequeiros has been through some changes. More... Download PDF Document

03 Jun 2009 - Register now: EuroGentest workshop on Best Practice in High Resolution Melting Curve Analysis

In September 2009 EuroGentest will organize the HRM workshop, which will focus on basic principles of HRM, how to set up an HRM gene test, diagnostic guidelines, other applications, new developments and most of all HRM data analysis. More...

25 Jun 2009 - CEQA now the largest Cytogenetic EQA provider in Europe

CEQA registrations now stand at 191 laboratories. More details will be presented at the ECA conference in the Poster section of the conference complex. More... Exit this website

July

13 Jul 2009 - Validation report on MLPA ready.

The EuroGentest validation report on Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification can now be downloaded here. It is an inter-laboratory collaborative validation study by Tom Janssens, Florence Le Calvez and Gert Matthijs More...

16 Jul 2009 - "Gene Patents and Collaborative Licensing Models"-book now on the market

Gene patents book A book on patent pools, clearinghouses, open source models and liability regimes More... Exit this website

13 Jul 2009 - New German law on genetic testing translated into English

The German Parliament has passed a new law on genetic testing. The law is likely to be promulgated and thus come into effect later this year. As a service to the scientific community we here provide an inofficial translation of the act. More...

23 Jul 2009 - The EMQN in conjunction with EuroGentest is organising a hereditary deafness (DFNB1) best practice meeting for genetic diagnostics

The aim of the meeting is to develop best practice guidelines for the molecular genetic diagnosis of hereditary deafness (DFNB1). The meeting will take place on the 2nd of October 2009, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. More...

August

18 Aug 2009 - CEQA reaches new milestone

The Cytogenetics European Quality Assessment scheme can now celebrate its 200th registration. Since it's pilot schemes this is an increase of more than 230%. More... Exit this website

September

22 Sep 2009 - Patient leaflets available in Hungarian, Bengali and Ukrainian

Patient leaflet small The patient leaflets cover more than 27 different languages. Information is available on genetic tests (predictive testing, amniocentesis, carrier testing,..), inheritance (dominant, recessive, x-linked,..) and general information ("What Happens in a Genetics Laboratory?","Genetic Glossary"). More...

October

16 Oct 2009 - Legal Uncertainty in the Area of Genetic Diagnostic Testing

This paper by Huys et al., which was published in this month’s Nature Biotechnology and which analyzed the patents for the TOP20 molecular diagnostic tests (a deliverable of EuroGentest UNIT5, WP5.3) has caused a stir in Washington DC. More... Exit this website

26 Oct 2009 - New European project on EudraVigilance Data Management is looking for collaborators

We are looking for part time and full time collaborators with a background in (bio-) medical or pharmaceutical sciences for a 4-year European project estimated to start in January 2010 More...

19 Oct 2009 - ESHG launches new website

The newly designed EHSG website has been launched. Besides a new look, the website has been restructured to provide a better service to its members and a more intuitive navigation through the multitude of documents and information. Several new interactive elements were added. A search function, a login on the front page, a discussion forum, online forms to submit conferences to the conference calendar, job offers and requests. Shortly, members will be able to edit their data in the membership database online. More... Exit this website

November

17 Nov 2009 - IGA Newsletter Special Edition #6

In October in New Delhi, India, stakeholders from all over the world, together with representatives of patient alliances, met at the 4th International Congress on Birth Defects and Disabilities in a Developing World to learn and discuss the options for translating research outcomes into better care and prevention of disorders and disabilities. Representatives of patients and their families united in the IGA expressed their views on matters of policy and practice related to health research and services. Attached you will find their declaration presenting 8 topics of urgent interest in the IGA Newsletter. More...

27 Nov 2009 - UK Genetic Variant Database Launches Enquiry Service

NGRL Manchester has launched a global online enquiry service for the UK Diagnostic Mutation Database. More...

05 Nov 2009 - Workshop "Accreditation for genetic testing laboratories according to ISO 15189", 14-15 January 2010, Birmingham

Workshop accr Sign up for the workshop on accreditation according to ISO15189 organized in January 2010. The aim of this workshop is to compare and share experiences of implementing and living with quality systems. Effective ways to move towards accreditation according ISO 15189, how to fulfill ISO 15189 requirements, to improve quality assurance, and common deficiencies in a QMS will be discussed. The workshop will be very interactive, including small group work, discussing cases and presentations of experts. More...

27 Nov 2009 - Vacancy - Project and Communications Manager

The National Genetics Reference Laboratory in Manchester (UK) is recruiting for a Project and Communications Manager More...

^NEW : Added in last 2 months.