diagnostics Archives - Tamirna - stability for life

Our microRNA toolbox has a new look

Anyone working with microRNAs knows the problem: there are a lot of databases and analysis tools, and it isn’t always obvious which one fits your research question. Plus, every year new tools are released that facilitate the functional analysis of microRNAs. That’s why we reworked our overview of web-based microRNA tools. It is now live with a new design. The biggest change is the structure. Instead of a simple list, the tools are now grouped by common research questions. These cover target prediction, experimentally validated miRNA-mRNA target interactions, pathway analysis, sequence and nomenclature, tissue expression, disease associations, small RNA-seq data analysis and data visualisation. This takes you straight from your question to the right tool. The page [...]

What does a positive test result really mean? Try our Predictive Value Explorer

2026-10-09T11:26:04+02:00October 9th, 2026|biomarker, diagnostics, IVD|Comments Off on What does a positive test result really mean? Try our Predictive Value Explorer

A test with 90% sensitivity and 90% specificity sounds reliable. But use it for screening, where 1 in 100 people has the disease, and fewer than 1 in 10 positive results will be true positives. Our new Predictive Value Explorer shows why. Sensitivity and specificity describe how well a test detects disease in samples with a known diagnosis. Patients and doctors ask a different question: if the result is positive, how likely is it that I have the disease? The positive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV) answer that question. They depend on a third number: the prevalence, or pre-test probability, of the disease in the people being tested. When the pre-test probability is low, as [...]