A formalin-free method for stabilizing cells for nucleic acid amplification, hybridization and next-generation sequencing.

Background: Formalin has been widely used by pathology laboratories. Its carcinogenicity has led researchers to explore formalin substitutes. Streck Cell Preservative (SCP) is a formalin-free preservative that can preserve cellular antigens.

Stabilization of circulating tumor cells in blood using a collection device with a preservative reagent.

Background: The enumeration and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of cancer patients is useful for cancer prognostic and treatment monitoring purposes. The number of CTCs present in patient blood is very low; thus, robust technologies have been developed to enumerate and characterize CTCs in patient blood samples. One of the challenges to the clinical utility of CTCs is their inherent fragility, which makes these cells very unstable during transportation and storage of blood samples.

Inactivation and viral load quantitation of human immunodeficiency virus in blood collected into Cyto-Chex(®) BCT blood collection device.

A blood collection tube (Cyto-Chex(®) BCT), which can stabilize white blood cells and immunogenic markers in blood samples, was investigated for its ability to inactivate human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and stabilize HIV for viral load quantitation. Laboratory-adapted HIV strains were either treated or untreated with the stabilizing reagent present in Cyto-Chex(®) BCT. A dilution of the reagent used to treat virus was 1:66, which was similar to the reagent concentration in Cyto-Chex(®) BCT device when blood was drawn into it.