Medical Foundation Director speaks in Spain regarding new Beckman Coulter instrument

Dr. Qing Li, Director of New Test and Technology Development at The Medical Foundation, just returned from a trip to Barcelona, Spain where she presented a poster for the clinical study, “Multi-Center Clinical Performance Evaluation of an Integrated Nucleic Acid Real Time Polymerase ChainReaction (PCR) System for Quantitative Detection of Human Cytomegalovirus(CMV). 

And while that may seem a little complicated, don’t stop reading just yet.  There are several companies worldwide who create and implement various instruments for laboratory testing.  The company, Beckman Coulter, is one of those.  Recently, Beckman Coulter developed a new instrument which tests for CMV, which is a large DNA virus that is a member of the herpes virus family.  CMV is widely dispersed throughout the population and can cause latent infections. 

When Beckman Coulter created the VERIS Cytomegalovirus Assay which is used on the VERIS MDx System, they needed a few laboratories to participate in a clinical trial to be sure the instrument performed as they expected. Along with the Indiana School of Medicine, The Medical Foundation was also asked to participate in the clinical trial which took place from September 2013 until December of the same year.

Dr. Li presented the findings of the study to those at Beckman Coulter and they were pleased with the findings.  As the user of many molecular products from various companies, Dr. Li was able to provide feedback regarding the Beckman Coulter product.  This is Beckman Coulter’s first Molecular product for the CMV detection by Real Time PCR.

Following the success of the clinical trial, representatives from Beckman Coulter invited Dr. Li to present a poster at the 24th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) conference on May 12^th in Barcelona.  The poster was available all day for conference attendees to examine and copies were available for them to peruse at a later time.  Dr. Li was on hand in the afternoon to answer any questions about the clinical trial and the pros and cons of using such an instrument.

Looking at its analytical performance, the Beckman Coulter product ranked with the others as far as being impressive, but there were additional benefits to the product, as well.  Dr. Li pointed out that unlike other analyzers, today in microbiology it is hard to find skilled technologists and this instrument does not require a skilled technologist with specialized training. 

The Medical Foundation has been instrumental in other clinical trials and is looking forward to participating in more to come.

In the picture above: Dr. Li is joined by her study group, from left to right, Steve Kye from Beckman Coulter, Medical Foundation technologist Jennifer Strefling, Dr. Qing Li, Foundation technologist Andrea Lehr, Kevin Maggert, Manager of Molecular Pathology and Flow Cytometry and Beckman Coulter’s Dennis Broyles.