Internal medicine, also known as general internal medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of internal diseases. Medical practitioners of internal medicine are referred to as internists, or physicians in Commonwealth nations. Internists possess specialized skills in managing patients with undifferentiated or multi-system disease processes. They provide care to both hospitalized (inpatient) and ambulatory (outpatient) patients and often contribute significantly to teaching and research. Internists are qualified physicians who have undergone postgraduate training in internal medicine, and should not be confused with "interns”, a term commonly used for a medical doctor who has obtained a medical degree but does not yet have a license to practice medicine unsupervised.
A radioallergosorbent test (RAST) is a blood test using radioimmunoassay test to detect specific IgE antibodies in order to determine the substances a subject is allergic to. This is different from a skin allergy test, which determines allergy by the reaction of a person's skin to different substances.
Labcorp Drug Development is a contract research organization (CRO) headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina, providing nonclinical, preclinical, clinical and commercialization services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Formerly called Covance, the company is part of Labcorp, which employs more than 70,000 people worldwide. Labcorp Drug Development claims to provide the world's largest central laboratory network.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's mission is to conduct basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.
Serology is the scientific study of serum and other body fluids. In practice, the term usually refers to the diagnostic identification of antibodies in the serum. Such antibodies are typically formed in response to an infection, against other foreign proteins, or to one's own proteins. In either case, the procedure is simple.
Tick-borne diseases, which afflict humans and other animals, are caused by infectious agents transmitted by tick bites. They are caused by infection with a variety of pathogens, including rickettsia and other types of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. The economic impact of tick-borne diseases is considered to be substantial in humans, and tick-borne diseases are estimated to affect ~80 % of cattle worldwide. Most of these pathogens require passage through vertebrate hosts as part of their life cycle. Tick-borne infections in humans, farm animals, and companion animals are primarily associated with wildlife animal reservoirs. many tick-borne infections in humans involve a complex cycle between wildlife animal reservoirs and tick vectors. The survival and transmission of these tick-borne viruses are closely linked to their interactions with tick vectors and host cells. These viruses are classified into different families, including Asfarviridae, Reoviridae, Rhabdoviridae, Orthomyxoviridae, Bunyaviridae, and Flaviviridae.
A medical laboratory scientist (MLS) or clinical laboratory scientist (CLS) or medical technologist (MT) performs diagnostic testing of blood and body fluids in clinical laboratories. The scope of a medical laboratory scientist's work begins with the receipt of patient or client specimens and terminates with the delivery of test results to physicians and other healthcare providers. The utility of clinical diagnostic testing relies squarely on the validity of test methodology. To this end, much of the work done by medical laboratory scientists involves ensuring specimen quality, interpreting test results, data-logging, testing control products, performing calibration, maintenance, validation, and troubleshooting of instrumentation as well as performing statistical analyses to verify the accuracy and repeatability of testing. Medical laboratory scientists may also assist healthcare providers with test selection and specimen collection and are responsible for prompt verbal delivery of critical lab results. Medical Laboratory Scientists in healthcare settings also play an important role in clinical diagnosis. An estimated 70% of medical decisions are based on laboratory test results and MLS contributions affect 95% of a health system's costs.
Cross-reactivity, in a general sense, is the reactivity of an observed agent which initiates reactions outside the main reaction expected. This has implications for any kind of test or assay, including diagnostic tests in medicine, and can be a cause of false positives. In immunology, the definition of cross-reactivity refers specifically to the reaction of the immune system to antigens. There can be cross-reactivity between the immune system and the antigens of two different pathogens, or between one pathogen and proteins on non-pathogens, which in some cases can be the cause of allergies.
Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques (NAET) is a form of alternative medicine which proponents claim can treat allergies and related disorders. The techniques were devised by Devi Nambudripad, a California-based chiropractor and acupuncturist, in 1983, drawing on a combination of ideas from applied kinesiology, acupuncture, acupressure, nutritional management, and chiropractic methods.
Point-of-care testing (POCT), also called near-patient testing or bedside testing, is defined as medical diagnostic testing at or near the point of care—that is, at the time and place of patient care. This contrasts with the historical pattern in which testing was wholly or mostly confined to the medical laboratory, which entailed sending off specimens away from the point of care and then waiting hours or days to learn the results, during which time care must continue without the desired information.
In the diagnostic laboratory, virus infections can be confirmed by a myriad of methods. Diagnostic virology has changed rapidly due to the advent of molecular techniques and increased clinical sensitivity of serological assays.
Ehrlichiosis ewingii infection is an infectious disease caused by an intracellular bacteria, Ehrlichia ewingii. The infection is transmitted to humans by the tick, Amblyomma americanum. This tick can also transmit Ehrlichia chaffeensis, the bacteria that causes human monocytic ehrlichiosis (HME).
Eurofins Scientific SE is a French group of laboratories headquartered in Luxembourg, providing testing and support services to the pharmaceutical, food, environmental, agriscience and consumer products industries and to governments.
Konstance K. Knox is an American virologist and entrepreneur who founded Viracor, the Wisconsin Viral Research Group (WVRG) and Viracor's Institute for Viral Pathogenesis (IVP). In 2000, Viracor became the first biotechnology company in the United States to correlate multiple sclerosis with human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6).
The National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD), located in the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is part of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s National Centres for Animal Disease. NCFAD is co-located with the Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory.
Molecular diagnostics is a collection of techniques used to analyze biological markers in the genome and proteome, and how their cells express their genes as proteins, applying molecular biology to medical testing. In medicine the technique is used to diagnose and monitor disease, detect risk, and decide which therapies will work best for individual patients, and in agricultural biosecurity similarly to monitor crop- and livestock disease, estimate risk, and decide what quarantine measures must be taken.
DiaSorin is an Italian multinational biotechnology company that produces and markets in vitro diagnostics reagent kits used in immunodiagnostics and molecular diagnostics and since July 2021, it is also active in the Life Science business. The group was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Saluggia, Italy. Its production is at several plants located in Europe and the United States: Saluggia and Gerenzano (Italy), Dietzenbach (Germany), Stillwater, Minnesota (US), Dartford (UK). Following the acquisition of Luminex, the company acquired five additional production plants located in the United States and in Canada (Toronto). The company is a constituent of the FTSE MIB index.
QuidelOrtho Corporation is a major American manufacturer of diagnostic healthcare products that are sold worldwide.
The National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL) is located in UCD, Dublin, Ireland and is affiliated to the University College Dublin School of Medicine. The NVRL provides a diagnostic and reference service for clinicians in Ireland investigating viral infections. For over forty years, the NVRL have provided a virology diagnostic service to the Irish health service.
