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Responsibility
ALPCO’s Diabetes Research Travel GrantALPCO strives to provide scientists and healthcare professionals with robust tools for their research and clinical diagnostic endeavors. We understand that championing extraordinary discoveries requires extraordinary efforts, and support. We are proud to continu...
Tips & Tricks
The Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) is a proven sensitive method for detecting and quantifying specific biomarkers in a wide range of clinical and research samples. The accuracy and precision of ELISAs can be affected by many factors, including pipetting, washing, and sample-handling techn...
PRIVACY POLICY
This privacy policy discloses the privacy practices for alpco.com. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected by this website. It will notify you of the following: What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the website, how it is used and with whom it ...
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
These Website Standard Terms and Conditions (these “Terms” or these “Website Standard Terms and Conditions”) contained herein on this webpage, shall govern your use of this website, including all pages within this website (collectively referred to herein below as this “Website”). These Terms apply i...
Toxicology
Drug-Induced Organ Injury Toxicological side effects are a common obstacle in drug development pipelines and often manifest in site-specific damage to vital organs, including the liver, kidney and heart. Estimates of compound attrition from failure to meet safety endpoints are as high as 45% in pre...
Stool-Based Biomarkers to Differentiate Between IBD and IBS
What are IBD and IBS? Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are two different gastrointestinal tract issues affecting millions of people every day. Although there is some overlap between symptoms of IBD and IBS, differences still remain in regards to pathologies, risks...
Early Detection of Diabetic Kidney Disease with Biomarkers
Introduction Over one third of diabetics will develop diabetic kidney disease (DKD) in their lifetime1. Despite the large amount of diabetics suffering from DKD, current methods for measuring and tracking kidney function may not be specific enough for diabetic systems2,3. Part III of The Common ...
Emerging Biomarker Research in NAFLD and NASH
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is becoming the most common chronic liver disease in the western hemisphere affecting 1 in 3 adults and 1 in 10 children1.  Today, liver biopsies are the only gold standard for precise diagnosis of NAFLD2. Because of this, there are tremendous efforts on the ...
Featured Biomarkers from A to Z
This handout briefly describes the role of several important hormones measured in research.
Vitamin D Metabolism and Function
Understanding Vitamin D Metabolism & Function Vitamin D is a steroid hormone involved in the intestinal absorption of calcium and the regulation of calcium homeostasis, bone differentiation and immune response. The term "vitamin D" refers to several different forms of this vitamin. ...
How Should We Define Vitamin D Deficiency?
Date: July 21, 2015 Author: Bethany Bell, PhD; Senior Product Manager at ALPCO Dr. Anders Berg presented at the Northeast Laboratory Conference in October 2014 regarding a much debated topic: vitamin D deficiency and how this should be defined. Dr. Berg referenced over one thousand studies, re...
Simplify Stool Sample Processing
Introduction We understand the challenges facing lab managers and directors who need to continuously improve workflow efficiency and implement new tests and technologies to be competitive. Our unique extraction method can be used with a portfolio of targeted stool markers. This allows your lab to s...
New Stool-Based Gastroenterology Assays and Extraction Method Can Improve Lab Sample Processing Time By Up To 86%
Date: January 26, 2016 ALPCO recently launched a new panel of 13 stool-based gastroenterology assays that are all compatible with one single extraction step. The unique extraction method allows laboratories to improve their sample processing time by up to 86% by extracting one sample for up to 13...
Heart Disease Biomarkers in Diabetes Research
Introduction Cardiovascular disease (CVD) encompasses a constellation of diseases related to the heart and circulatory system. Despite efforts to understand and combat CVD complications from diabetes, 65% of diabetics will pass away from cardiovascular issues1. Part 2 of The Common Denominator eBoo...
Physiological Actions of Natriuretic Peptides
Introduction Humans have at least 50 discovered hormones managing vital biological functions in the body. These hormones are produced by the body’s organs and glands. Natriuretic peptides (NPs) are structurally related hormones synthesized and released from the heart, including atrial natriuretic p...
BTK Inhibitors as Cancer Drug Treatments
Date: July 26, 2016 Author: Andrea Tarbet, Product Marketing Associate at ALPCO Over the past several years, the drug arsenal to combat B cell cancers has gained a mighty weapon: Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors. The origins of using BTK inhibitors as cancer drug treatments actually b...
Customer Spotlight: Measuring Functionality of Islet Microtissues
Date: July 26, 2016 Beta cell generation has gained much traction in recent years among diabetes researchers. Investigators are not only converting adipose tissue and skin cells into beta cells, they are also starting to grow beta cells in a petri dish in vitro. Swiss company InSphero has begun m...
Choosing the Relevant GLP-1 Species to Study
  A better understanding of incretins has led to tremendous therapeutic advances in the field of type 2 diabetes1. These hormones are released from the gut in response to food ingestion and lead to the stimulation of pancreatic β-cells which then release insulin in a glucose-concentration de...
New Zonulin ELISAs and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Assays for IBD to be Launched at Digestive Disease Week®
We are excited to announce that we will launch new gastrointestinal and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) assays at Digestive Disease Week® May 7-9, 2017 in Chicago, IL. Included in this release are the Zonulin Stool ELISA and Zonulin Serum ELISA to aid in the study of gut permeability and celiac dis...
Dorothy Hodgkin’s Discovery of Insulin's 3D Structure
Nobel Prize winning British chemist Dr. Dorothy Hodgkin significantly contributed to unraveling the secrets of diabetes mellitus. She is considered a founder of X-ray crystallography, a technique used to discern the structures of organic biomolecules. Dorothy Hodgkin’s discovery of insulin's 3D...
Researching Therapeutic Drug Monitoring for IBD
Multiple classes of biologics are available for the treatment of inflammation associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) which ultimately improves the quality of life for patients.  However, many challenges are associated with using biologics to treat IBD such as immunogenetic reactions and th...
An Accurate Solution to the Challenges with Measuring GLP-1
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is a gut hormone which plays an essential role in insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis1. While GLP-1 has become central to many metabolic disease research programs, various GLP-1 ELISA kits currently available on the market have been failing to meet the needs of ...
The Impact of DPP-4 on Active GLP-1 Preanalytical Variability
Active glucagon-like peptide-1 (active GLP-1) is an incretin hormone known for its pivotal role in the regulation of insulin and glucagon secretion1,2. However, research has demonstrated that the accurate quantification of active GLP-1 is difficult to achieve and has led to the widespread inability ...
The Generation and Function of Active GLP-1
The Generation and Function of Active GLP-1 Active glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is a member of the incretin hormone family and is generated as a result of post translational modifications during proglucagon processing1,2. Active GLP-1 plays a key role in the incretin effect and is vital for main...