Clinical Scientists’ Choice Awards winners announced at virtual summit

The winners of the 2020 Clinical Scientists’ Choice Awards have been announced live from the inaugural SelectScience Virtual Clinical Chemistry Summit. Once again, clinical scientists and healthcare professionals around the globe were invited to participate by nominating, reviewing and voting for the products that have had the greatest impact on clinical science and patient care.

Following the postponement of physical conferences as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, the winners and nominees of these prestigious awards were recognized at a special online ceremony held during the SelectScience Virtual Clinical Chemistry Summit. The summit, which takes place July 20-22, highlights the latest innovations in the clinical chemistry from institutions all over the world and features talks by top physicians, clinical scientists and technology innovators. Read on to discover this year’s Scientists’ Choice Awards winners.

Best New Clinical Instrument of 2019

Voted for by clinical scientists across the globe, the award for Best New Clinical Instrument of 2019 went to the DxA 5000 lab automation system by Beckman Coulter. Laboratories are focused on enhancing patient care by driving faster turnaround times and delivering quality results and the DxA 5000 lab automation system by Beckman Coulter helps labs meet these challenges by providing a new level of comprehensive pre-analytical sample quality detection and reducing manual processing steps to improve efficiency.

The runners-up were:

• Alinity m molecular diagnostics analyzer, from Abbott
• QXDx AutoDG ddPCR system, from Bio-Rad
• Thermo Scientific™ Vanquish™ MD HPLC system, from Thermo Fisher Scientific
• BD COR™ System, from BD Integrated Diagnostic Solutions
• PS-10 sample preparation system, from Sysmex America
• RAPIDPoint^® 500e Blood Gas System by Siemens Healthineers

Best New Clinical Assay, Kit or Software of 2019

The award for Best New Clinical Assay, Kit or Software of 2019 went to the Afinion™ HbA1c Dx assay by Abbott. This HbA1c test can be used as an aid to diagnose and monitor patients with diabetes or pre-diabetes at the point of care in just 3 minutes.

The runners-up were:

• AI-Rad Companion Chest CT software, from Siemens Healthineers
• QXDx BCR-ABL %IS kit, from Bio-Rad
• therascreen RT-PCR kit, from QIAGEN
• PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay, from Agilent Technologies
• ARIES^® MRSA assay, from Luminex

Clinical Video Interview of the Year - in association with The Scientists' Channel

This year's winning video ‘Addressing the rising prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease’ was an interview with Prof. Zobair M. Younossi, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.

In this video, Younossi discusses the epidemiology of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), addressing the need for more awareness globally and why the current approach to clinical care needs to change. Younossi will also be speaking at the Virtual Clinical Chemistry Summit. Register now to attend his talk on Wednesday, July 22, 20:30 (BST) / 21:30 (CEST) / 15:30 (EDT) / 12:30 (PDT).

Reviewers' Choice Awards: Clinical Company of the Year

Picking up this award, Abbott is devoted to improving life through the development of products and technologies that span the breadth of healthcare, with a portfolio of leading, science-based offerings in diagnostics, medical devices and more. Abbott won the Reviewers' Choice Award for Clinical Company of the Year award in recognition of the consistently positive feedback it has received from clinical scientists sharing their opinions via reviews on the SelectScience website over the past year.

Lindsey Jones, Abbott, shared the following: “Abbott is delighted that the Afinion™ HbA1c Dx assay has been recognized as the best new clinical laboratory product of 2019 and for the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Clinical Company of the Year. Our team is dedicated to transforming care by giving people — and their doctors — greater access to timely information to better manage health. We are proud to offer the first point-of-care HbA1c assay to receive FDA clearance to be used as an aid in the diagnosis of diabetes and as an aid in identifying patients who may be at risk for developing diabetes.”

Clinical Article of the Year

In this years’ winning article, Brett McWhinney, Supervising Scientist at Pathology Queensland, discusses how his lab has established one of the most successful clinical pathology centers in Oceania.

The article, titled ‘How Mass Spectrometry Transformed Our Clinical Pathology Lab into a Global Leader’ and featuring technology from Waters, offers top tips and key considerations for those interested in expanding their clinical testing repertoire from scalability and harmonization to automation and data management.

Clinical Webinar of the Year

The Clinical Webinar of the Year was ‘From gene to genome: Next-generation sequencing workflow automation’. Presented by Dr. rer. nat. Manja Meggendorfer, MBA, Head of Molecular Genetics, Munich Leukemia Laboratory, and in association with Hamilton Robotics, the winning webinar showcases how the Munich Leukemia Laboratory has achieved uniform output and homogeneity within its sequencing process by automating NGS library preparation on liquid handling robots.

Clinical Email of the Year

Waters collects this year's award for the email ‘The Value of LC-MS in the clinical lab: 5 Key Advantages’. The winning email features a white paper produced in partnership with SelectScience that explores five key benefits of mass spectrometry in the clinical lab, with a focus on relevant application examples.

Reviewers' Choice Awards: Clinical Customer Service of the Year

The Customer Service of the Year award went to Beckman Coulter and recognizes the clinical company receiving consistently positive after-sales service feedback from clinical scientists via SelectScience reviews in 2019.

Seals of Quality Special Announcement

The DeNovix CellDrop™ Cell Counter has been awarded the coveted Silver Seal of Quality.

Visit the Scientists' Choice Awards website for more information.