Thermo Fisher Scientific launches AcroMetrix Oncology Hotspot Control

Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced the launch of a universal quality control material compatible with multiple sequencing platforms, for use in cancer research.

The AcroMetrix Oncology Hotspot Control is the company's first clinical next-generation sequencing (NGS) quality control for laboratories running oncology tests. It is compatible with multiple instrument platforms, assays and bioinformatics pipelines.

It can be used to test precision and detect analytical deviations that may arise from reagent and instrument variation, allowing users to control for more than 500 hotspot mutations via a single process.

The material contains cancer-associated mutations spanning 53 genes including KRAS, BRAF, ERBB2, EGFR and TP53.

Dr Linh Hoang, director of quality controls at Thermo Fisher Scientific, said: "Quality controls are an important part of a clinical laboratory's quality assurance programme and the commercial availability of a platform-agnostic control will raise the standard for NGS in the clinical laboratory."

This comes in the same week the firm launched its MAbPac HIC-10 HPLC column, a new hydrophobic interaction column offering additional selectivity for separating monoclonal antibodies or antibody-drug conjugates.