Rapid Diagnosis and Biomedical Research

Providing a clinically supported service for the rapid diagnosis and management of infectious and genetic disease.

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About Us
We provide clinically supported diagnostics for infections and genetic diseases

We also provide a genetic profiling service for human identification and undertake biomedical research covering various aspects of human and veterinary pathology. This service includes contract research and clinical trials for external organisations, as well as continuing in-house assay development.
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Research & DiagnosticsOur Services
DNA Icon

Sequencing

Sanger and Next Generation Sequencing.
DNA Icon

Pathogen Detection

Rapid detection of Pathogens and Host Responses.
Antibody Icon

Antibody/Antigen Detection

Rapid detection of specific antibodies in human and veterinary samples.
Genetic Icon

Genetics

Genetic Profiling for human identification. Haemochromatosis, Prothrombin and Factor V Mutations
Biomedical Icon

Biomedical Research

We undertake grant-aided research with our colleagues in universities and in other research companies.

Contact Us

Speak to a member of our team to register as a client.

Clinical Advice on Infectious Disease

We are happy to discuss all aspects of clinical advice for infectious disease with healthcare colleagues without obligation to use our service.

Custom HL7 Integration

We can tailor our inputs and outputs for direct communication with our client's LIMS.

Secure Results Transfer

Results are available via HL7 and encrypted PDFs via Email.

Our Standards

We work to the highest possible standards; subscribing to UK and international standards of accreditation, quality assurance and ‘best-practices’, in order to maintain excellence in all our undertakings. We welcome ongoing contact with our clients and are happy to discuss how we may help you address the problems of infectious disease.

What PeopleFrequently Asked

We recommend the use of the DX service, but any courier service or guaranteed first class post is acceptable.

NB: The DX service requires the sender to have a contract with DX. Further Information

The laboratory is staffed Monday to Friday 08:30 to 17:30 and on Saturday for the unpacking and labelling of samples, which will be placed in cold-storage until the next working day.

Before sending samples please check that:

  1. The sample is of the correct type,
  2. The sample is correctly labelled and has the full address of the company as well as the post code,
  3. The sample is correctly packaged.

Please be aware that it is the responsibility of the sender to comply with safety regulations when transporting material.

No. We undertake diagnostic work for hospital departments, laboratories and medical practitioners. We undertake research and development work for and with university departments, pharmaceutical companies and other organisations.
We will supply information about our testing and our Microbiologist will liaise with your GP or physician if this is seen to be helpful.

We offer an 8-hour service from receipt of clinical specimens for double the normal sample analysis price. Please enquire BEFORE requesting this service; we may be able to offer a routine assay that is as fast on the day and will cost no extra.

At weekends, please telephone to arrange urgent analysis. We place a weekend premium on our charges for urgent analysis; please enquire by telephone if you are considering using this service.

Yes, all clients or prospective clients are very welcome to visit our laboratory.

To arrange a visit, please contact us.

There are now a number of options for the method of receiving results.

  1. Pre-specified email with a PDF attachment.
  2. Through email as a link to our client portal. (Not yet functional)
    This helps to keep results secure as it will require users to sign in before viewing, as opposed to sending a PDF to a shared mailbox.
  3. Directly through the use of HL7 and our API. Please contact us to set this up.
Clinically important or relevant results will be telephoned as soon as the test operator enters them into LIMS.

Results sent through email are transmitted to users between 16:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday with the exception of any SARS CoV-2 test results from any pre-arranged weekend testing. These will be transmitted to users on Saturday or Sunday when results are approved.

For more information on this, please refer to the Laboratory User Handbook or call the office.

Sensitivity depends on the quality of the clinical sample and the test performed. We can give a measure of sensitivity in terms of organisms or genome copies detected, based on cell culture isolates of wild type virus or bacterial culture. Many molecular detection systems are more sensitive for clinical use than conventional culture methods because the organism does not have to remain viable to allow detection. Antibody assays may be measured in International Units.

All submitted specimens are processed with a nucleic acid extraction procedure that has been shown to overcome the potential inhibition of assays associated with clinical material. Urine samples however, may still contain enough inhibitors, even after extraction, to affect the detection of low levels of target nucleic acid. Please bear this in mind when considering results from urine samples e.g. Chlamydia trachomatis testing.

The laboratory is fully staffed Monday to Friday 08:30 to 17:30.
We also receive and store samples on Saturday morning and these will be processed on the next Monday.

Outside of these hours an on-call clinical advice service is always available.

For details of our quality assurances, please see Quality Assurance.