Keeping you up to date on recent developments in diagnostics.

Diagnosis and treatment of infections typically occurs after people exhibit obvious signs of illness, such as fever or a cough. By then, they may already have exposed others and are well on the way to developing more serious symptoms themselves. In the military, such delays can hamper medical countermeasures to contain potential outbreaks and reduce downtime among active duty personnel. Now, Amsterdam-based Royal Philips NV and the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Defense Innovations Unit have built an early warning algorithm – using artificial intelligence – to detect infection before a person shows any signs or symptoms of infection.

LONDON – A U.K. national plan to upgrade population cancer screening will see greater adoption of genomics and biomarker-based testing, and the use of artificial intelligence to help interpret results. There will be moves to make it easier to pilot and adopt novel diagnostics and to do more targeted screening to identify and follow people who are shown to be at greater risk of developing specific types of cancer.