Lab News in brief: CGT Catapult, PacBio, Isakson Prize, Hartwell, Exogene, Swansea Uni, Metir, Berry Genomics, diaago…

As of April, 17 therapies were approved and reimbursed for use while during 2024, a total of 9.5% of global advanced therapy clinical trials had representation in the UK. Nine companies that the organisation worked with in the previous financial year were conducting clinical trials in the UK, said the report. 

“We have delivered partnerships that supported industry growth, and helped ensure the UK maintains its position as a global leader in advanced therapies. The advanced therapies sector, is crucial to driving forward the Government’s mission of sustainable economic growth and improved health,” commented chief executive Matthew Durdy.

Read the full report here.

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Developer Hartwell has won planning approval for its £44 million masterplan for new carbon efficient laboratory and workspace buildings aimed at small and medium sized science and technology companies, at Wootton Science Park near Oxford.

It will comprise 9,869 sq m across five new commercial buildings and connected amenities and facilities. Hartwell has owned the park since 1975 and submitted the masterplan in May 2024.

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Intertronics brand Dyne Testing has published a guide to for medical device manufacturers on understanding surface energy and tension, and their relationship to adhesion and coatings.

Why Surface Measurement Matters in Medical Device Manufacturing explains methods to assess wettability, how surface treatment can clean and activate surfaces for better bonding, and how measurements techniques generate traceable, audit-ready data for process validation.

It covers practical measurement techniques and details how surface measurement data supports ISO 13485 and FDA 21 CFR 820 standards compliance.

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PacBio and Berry Genomics have won the world’s first regulatory approval for a clinical long-read sequencing platform in China. The new test utilises PacBio’s long-read sequencing to detect multiple complex genetic variants in a single test, including copy number changes and repeat expansions. Initially it has been approved for thalassaemia, the blood condition in which the body does not make enough haemoglobin – one of China’s most common inherited disorders.

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Start-up developing T-cell receptor (TCR)-based therapies for the treatment of cancer, Exogene has taken R&D laboratory space and co-working in Barclays Eagle Labs at The Oxford Trust’s Wood Centre for Innovation in Headington, Oxford.

Co-founded by Federico Paoletti and Andrea Mambrini, the firm uses deep learning to aid discovery of innovative TCR-based therapies to eradicate solid tumours, and is currently advancing a first drug candidate targeting non-small cell lung cancer.

One of six early-stage companies based at the Wood Centre for Innovation, which also hosts DJS Antibodies, Helio Display Materials, Jack Fertility, Lumai, and PicturaBio, Exogene moved from the BioEscalator, the University of Oxford’s biomedical incubator at nearby Old Road Campus. 

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A study from the HiFi Solves Consortium – involving 23 institutions across 16 countries – claims that HiFi sequencing can identify pathogenic variants linked to rare diseases in a single test. The tests resulted in all 125 known pathogenic variants across 11 complex genomic regions being successfully identified, said the organisation. 

It added that rare disease diagnostics currently average five to six years owing to the number of inconclusive tests involved before diagnosis.

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Rice University applied physicist Junichiro Kono has been awarded the American Physical Society’s 2026 Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids.

 The biennial prize recognises outstanding optical research that leads to breakthroughs in the condensed matter sciences. Kono was cited for “pioneering contributions to optical physics, light-condensed matter interactions and photonic applications of nanosystems, including artificial quantum structures and carbon-based nanomaterials.”

His work exploring how light interacts with materials at the nanoscale could help develop new light-based technologies such as faster and more efficient electronics to quantum communication and sensing systems that operate at the limits of physical precision. Already it has revealed new optical phenomena in semiconductors and carbon nanostructures, advancing understanding in photonics and quantum optics using state-of-the-art spectroscopic techniques.

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Researchers at the Manchester Breast Centre, based at The University of Manchester, found that blocking the effects of the hormone progesterone, using ulipristal acetate, a drug already used on the NHS, may reduce the risk of breast cancer developing in women before the menopause, with a strong family history of the disease.

MRI scans showed breast tissue became less dense with treatment; higher breast density is known to increase risk of breast cancer. Treatment reportedly was most effective in women who had high breast density before treatment started.

The study, funded by Breast Cancer Now and supported by Prevent Breast Cancer, has been published in Nature.

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Mobile and point-of-use water and environmental testing Metir is working with Swansea University to develop next-generation methods for detecting PFAS forever chemicals.

Research led by Dr Ruth Godfrey at Swansea demonstrated the feasibility of integrating portable liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LCMS) with low-waste extraction materials, within a ‘lab in a van’ system, reports the firm.

It enables rapid and accurate detection of PFAS in water, soil, effluent, and biological samples on-site, significantly reducing analysis turnaround time and environmental impact compared to traditional laboratory methods. Conventional lab based testing can involve delays at collection, transportation and lab stages that increase the incidence of corrupted samples and inaccurate results.

Metir supported the programme through a three-and-a-half-year PhD sponsorship using its proprietary mass spectrometry platform, with successful field trials on a Welsh river in April 2025.

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Laboratory consumables and equipment distributor diaago’s quality management system has been certified to ISO 9001:2015 by LRQA (Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance).

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Pic: (clockwise top left) Metir, Exogene, diaago, CGT Catapult