Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

LGC Clinical Diagnostics, Stanford University Extend Collaboration for NIPT Reference Materials

NEW YORK – LGC Clinical Diagnostics said Tuesday that it has extended and expanded an exclusive partnership with the Stanford University Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology around maternal and fetal diagnostic testing.

Under the agreement, Stanford will continue to provide LGC with clinical guidance in recruiting and selecting patients whose pregnancy has been identified with a genetic abnormality. LGC uses the cases to manufacture reference materials for noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT).

Milford, Massachusetts-based LGC offers these NIPT reference materials as part of its SeraCare line, marketing them as an alternative to clinical samples.

The partnership will also be expanded to cover analysis of phenotypic-genotypic correlations and metabolic profiling of some common maternal/fetal cardiac defects known to be related to monogenic disorders.

"Our collaboration with Stanford has been key to designing and developing quality control standards for fetal maternal medicine and NIPT," Russell Garlick, CSO at LGC, said in a statement. "This year, we hope to make further contributions advancing biochemical profiling using mass spec-based metabolomics to help identify biomarkers for early indications of maternal fetal disorders that emerge late in pregnancy."

“For the last five years, we have had a fruitful collaboration with SeraCare that has led to many discoveries and improvements in the field of prenatal genetics," Katherine Bianco, clinical associate professor at Stanford, said in a statement. "We are looking forward to expanding our understanding of fetal and maternal wellness, utilizing cutting edge metabolic and lipidomic profiling.”

Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The Scan

Genes Linked to White-Tailed Jackrabbits' Winter Coat Color Change

Climate change, the researchers noted in Science, may lead to camouflage mismatch and increase predation of white-tailed jackrabbits.

Adenine Base Editor Targets SCID Mutation in New Study

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, report in Cell that adenine base editing was able to produce functional T lymphocytes in a model of severe combined immune deficiency.

Researchers Find Gene Affecting Alkaline Sensitivity in Plants

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science have found a locus affecting alkaline-salinity sensitivity, which could aid in efforts to improve crop productivity, as they report in Science.

International Team Proposes Checklist for Returning Genomic Research Results

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics present a checklist to guide the return of genomic research results to study participants.