Serological assays for emerging coronaviruses: Challenges and pitfalls

Challenges of PTH Assays

Parathyroid hormone (PTH) plays a vital role in regulating of blood Calcium. In addition, it regulates the amount of phosphate and vitamin D in the blood. PTH is a polypeptide hormone that found in the blood circulation as peptides with different amino acid counts. The active form of the PTH which has biological activity, contains 84 amino acids, but under the influence of proteolytic enzymes...

Standard setting in medical education: fundamental concepts and emerging challenges

  The process of determining the minimum pass level to separate the competent students from those who do not perform well enough is called standard setting. A large number of methods are widely used to set cut-scores for both written and clinical examinations. There are some challenging issues pertaining to any standard setting procedure. Ignoring these concerns would result in a large dispute ...

Pitfalls in invertebrate proteasome assays.

The ubiquitin-proteasome system controls a variety of essential intracellular processes through directed protein turnover. The invertebrate proteasome has recently gained increasing interest with respect to central physiological processes and pathways in different taxa. A pitfall in proteasome activity assays, represented by the trypsin-like, chymotrypsin-like or caspase-like site, lies in the ...

Specific serology for emerging human coronaviruses by protein microarray.

We present a serological assay for the specific detection of IgM and IgG antibodies against the emerging human coronavirus hCoV-EMC and the SARS-CoV based on protein microarray technology. The assay uses the S1 receptor-binding subunit of the spike protein of hCoV-EMC and SARS-CoV as antigens. The assay has been validated extensively using putative cross-reacting sera of patient cohorts exposed...

Image Guided SBRT II: Challenges & Pitfalls Dosimetric Challenges & Pitfalls