The COVID-19 Pandemic – Webinars and Online Events

Recent years have witnessed a sea-change in how laboratory tests have been employed to diagnose, monitor, and manage viral infections.

In recent past respiratory seasons, the world witnessed a “tripledemic” of Influenza (flu), SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). The 2024-25 landscape will likely be different, with new virus variants, new vaccines and treatments, like the game-changing antibody that protects children from RSV. The healthcare and public health community have also learned some valuable lessons going forward with the ever-evolving respiratory agents.

In this presentation, Dr. Rodney Rohde will discuss the primary microbiology, epidemiology, control, prevention, vulnerable populations, the importance of laboratory validation, and the benefits of molecular-based testing of these three primary respiratory season pathogens.

Key advances will be highlighted across the field of immuno-oncology. Hear a cross-section of experts discuss their research with a focus on basic research and a broad range of established and novel immunotherapeutics.

This webinar explores how a next-generation automated ELISA technique can profile the dysregulated host response to COVID-19 in association with viral load in plasma.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the spread of respiratory pathogens, but their circulation is now returning to pre-pandemic levels.

Meaningful biomarker studies that account for genetic, environmental and lifestyle variation, or comprise of complex signatures from multiple proteins, require large cohorts – too large for the current proteomics discovery platforms.

In this webinar, Dr. Jonathan Schmitz will provide a broad overview of PCR in diagnostic microbiology, with particular emphasis on the challenges that can face the development of new assays and impact their clinical actionability. Many of these issues - while hardly unique to SARS-CoV-2- can be highlighted by the evolving dynamics of this virus over the past three years.

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was adopted rapidly into clinical and point-of-care testing laboratories enabling prompt diagnostics, treatment and surveillance. qPCR remains the go-to method for microbial detection in areas including clinical, agricultural, veterinary and food safety diagnostics.

The polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is firmly established as the method of choice for the detection of microbial agents in the areas of clinical, veterinary and agricultural diagnostics and food safety. The current pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of local, fast and specific testing for SARS-CoV-2. It should also act as a wake-up call for the threat posed by infectious diseases spreading because of climate change, increasing antibiotic resistance and the hazard of zoonotic transfer caused by human encroachment of animal habitats. We are working on new tests, protocol and reagents to achieve faster molecular diagnostic testing both for both laboratory based and POC applications. Our target of delivering a diagnostic test result within five minutes of sampling has the potential to lead to a paradigm shift in our approach to detecting and classifying microbial pathogens in preparation for the inevitable next pandemic

RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), is essential in the RNA replication within the life cycle of the severely acute respiratory coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing the deadly respiratory induced sickness COVID-19.