Thermo Fisher Scientific this week launched in Europe its Copeptin assay for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction.
The assay was developed by in vitro diagnostic firm BRAHMS, which Thermo Fisher acquired last month. Copeptin is a biomarker that when used in combination with a troponin biomarker test, allows doctors to rule out or confirm the onset of a heart attack within minutes, Thermo Fisher said in a statement.
Physicians currently rely on electrocardiogram combined with troponin, which, in most patients with chest pains, cannot indicate AMI until at least four hours after the onset of symptoms and requires additional testing after six to nine hours, Thermo Fisher added.
In addition to making the test available in Europe, the company is generating data in anticipation of submitting a 510(k) pre-market approval application to the US Food and Drug Administration for the assay at the end of 2010.
Proteome Solutions this week launched version 1.7.0 of its proteomics analysis software ProteinID Finder.
The software allows for the extraction of data from UniProt.
It imports protein lists derived from mass spectrometric analysis into experiments and organizes proteomics experiments into workspaces. It can compare multiple experiments and identify trends and similarities between experiments.
Improvements to the software include automatic updates to UniProt's latest database releases so that workspaces, queries, and views are kept current; an integrated feedback system; and a new Query Designer tool for extracting specific user information from Uniprot.
Researchers can download and try a free version of ProteinID Finder Lite from the Proteome Solutions webpage.