26
November 2018

NML appointed as expert laboratory for viral EQA schemes by INSTAND e.V.

We are delighted to announce that the UK National Measurement Laboratory (NML), hosted at LGC, has recently been appointed as an expert laboratory by the external quality assurance testing provider INSTAND e.V.

The appointment, which covers external quality assurance in the field of virus genome detection, recognises the NML’s world-leading expertise in the field of digital PCR for nucleic acid quantification.

The applicability of digital PCR to be used as a reference measurement procedure, as we proposed in a recent paper in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, enables the improved standardisation of quality assurance schemes such as those run by INSTAND as it removes reliance on consensus values.
 
As Professor Heinz Zeichhardt, EQAS Adviser, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, explain, “The NML is recognised internationally as being at the leading-edge of applying dPCR techniques to standardise and therefore improve diagnostic laboratory measurements so that we can better diagnose and treat patients and improve virus safety testing in blood transfusion.”
 
Jim Huggett, Principal Scientist, said, “This appointment follows on from long standing collaborations with INSTAND on European measurement science research projects and represents another step in our work to develop a global measurement framework that will underpin the standardisation of biological measurements and improve measurement comparability.”
 
Discover more about our new ISO17025 accredited digital PCR Measurement Facility.
 
For further information on our work please contact us.