The Faces of Luminex: Kendel Martin, Accounting

Today we’re kicking off a new series of blog posts profiling Luminex employees. We’re proud that the Luminex brand is well known in the life science community, but we wouldn’t be where we are today without the terrific people behind the company. In this blog series, you’ll get a chance to meet some of the employees who make this company special.

We begin with this Q&A featuring Kendel Martin, Vice President of Accounting. She’s a CPA and veteran of financial reporting and auditing who has been with the company for nearly nine years. A Tennessee native, she still contends that Memphis barbecue is better than Texas barbecue — and she’s on a mission to convert the rest of us!

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ARIES Pediatric Study Demonstrates Less Invasive Solution for Enterovirus Testing

Better diagnostic tools could have a major impact in patient care

At this year’s Clinical Virology Symposium (CVS), Xiaotian Zheng’s spoke about developing and evaluating a laboratory developed test (LDT) on the ARIES® System for detecting enteroviruses in blood samples from children. The enterovirus study began with a plea from his hospital’s emergency department to decrease the number of painful, invasive spinal taps performed on children. Zheng, Director of Microbiology at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, knew that suspected enterovirus infections contribute significantly to the number of cerebrospinal fluid samples collected from patients. Enterovirus testing can be a challenge due to the variability of viral load, and non-specific symptoms. In addition, current tests require the collection and use of cerebrospinal fluid instead of less invasive alternative specimens.

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Meet SYNCT™: Simpler Software that Does More for Your Clinical Lab

Connecting your instrument to the LIS has never been easier

Clinical labs tell us that one of their biggest concerns is the inefficiency created by software and information systems that don’t talk to each other. It often takes a laboratory’s IT department anywhere from three to six months to integrate an instrument to their laboratory information system (LIS). Lab directors waste thousands of steps every day checking test results within the lab. Why can’t details of a run including the run curves be available on the computer in their office? Why do labs have to associate samples to consumables while standing at the instrument? Why can’t this association be done at the time samples are added to consumables?

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At AACC, Checking Out the Latest Clinical Advances

FDA clearance for ARIES® respiratory assay, welcoming Nanosphere

Earlier this month we were delighted to attend the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo — better known as the AACC conference — in Philadelphia. Along with nearly 20,000 other clinical lab professionals, we wholeheartedly supported the meeting’s keen focus on the need to be beyond reproach when it comes to data accuracy and test reliability.

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New BC-GN Outcomes Study Demonstrates Significant Reduction in Mortality

A new study by Tamar Walker et al from Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in 30-day mortality and mortality associated with multidrug-resistant organisms following the implementation of the Verigene® Gram-Negative Blood Culture Test (BC-GN). This pre-post study was conducted at Keck Medical Center in Los Angeles, California and was published in the peer reviewed Journal of Clinical Microbiology under the title “Clinical Impact After Laboratory Implementation of the Verigene Gram-Negative Bacteria Microarray for Positive Blood Cultures.”

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