Sebia, a market leader in protein electrophoresis and tests for the diagnosis of haemoglobin disorders, announces the debut of its Haemoglobins Atlas. This tool, which has been developed for the first time, is dedicated to helping Sebia’s capillary electrophoresis users orientate their diagnosis of haemoglobinopathies.

Haemoglobin electrophoresis is an established technique routinely used in clinical laboratories for screening samples for haemoglobinopathies (haemoglobin variants and thalassemia). The assay is based on the principle of capillary electrophoresis in free solution.

Sebia’s capillary electrophoresis technology allows fast and efficient separation of haemoglobin fractions and detection of the major haemoglobin variants and thalassemia patterns. The high sensitivity and specificity offered by capillary electrophoresis makes it a reliable first line screening method.

To mark the tenth year of this Sebia technology, the company has developed the haemoglobin Atlas as a go-to reference compendium. The Haemoglobins Atlas demonstrates how Sebia is a key lab partner. As an interactive educational CD-Rom, the Atlas will help laboratories to increase their diagnostic knowledge of haemoglobinopathies.

The Atlas is dedicated to the Sebia customers who use the Capillarys and Minicap instruments. The instruments perform sequences automatically, from sampling to final clear-cut profile, with precise quantification, exceptionally sharp separation and presumptive identification of the most common haemoglobins.

Professor Piero Giordano, Emeritus associated professor and clinical biochemical molecular geneticist at Leiden University medical centre in The Netherlands, has collaborated as scientific counsellor on all of the research data. He also helped to develop the content.

“As an interactive educational aid, the Atlas will cover as many variants as possible, from common to rare and in variable genotype combinations,” said Professor Giordano. “Presumed risk information is also included. If a lab result ends up in the files without any preventive follow up, the diagnostic efforts of the lab will have been wasted. For this reason we are now sharing all of the relevant confirmed and frequent patterns that are associated with severe diseases.”

“Our customers will find the new Atlas a valuable companion in deciding how and when to confirm their provisional findings, either with a simple sickle test or with molecular diagnosis,” said Benoit Adelus, Sebia president and chief executive officer. “We aim to keep this Atlas interactive by offering constant updates. Soon we will also provide extranet access for Sebia customers.”

The Sebia Haemoglobins Atlas will be updated with new cases on a regular basis. All Sebia users are invited to contribute to the enrichment of the Atlas database by sharing their collection of capillary electrophoresis profiles displaying rare hemoglobin variants with their Sebia representative.

Sebia enjoys an ongoing collaboration with Professor Giordano. Plans for the next version of the Atlas are already underway. The second edition will provide more case studies and additional user-friendly features.

Haemoglobinopathies are the most common monogenic disease in humans. Around 7 per cent of the worldwide population are carriers and 2.7 per 1,000 conceptions are affected by haemoglobinopathies.

Haemoglobin disorders are traditionally endemic among populations originating from Southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Due to migrant populations, virtually all countries now face a broad spectrum of Haemoglobinopathies traits that can’t be pre-selected by blood count sample screening. Although capillary electrophoresis provides excellent sensitivity and specificity for the detection of common haemoglobin variants (e.g. HbS, Hb C, Hb D, Hb E, etc.), rare variants migrating in the same positions of the common ones can be also be detected. These also need to be characterised.