Blood poisoning bacteria identified faster
Five European research centres and two industry partners have joined in a new research consortium called Intopsens. The consortium will develop a highly integrated optical sensor for point of care label-free identification of sepsis (blood poisoning) bacteria strains and their antibiotic resistance. Intopsens is coordinated by KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and the European Union supports the consortium during a three-year period with 2.6 MEuro through its Seventh Framework Programme.
Sepsis is a serious medical condition characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state caused by infection. The body develops this inflammatory response to micro-organisms in the blood, and the related layman's term is therefore blood poisoning. Sepsis can lead to septic shock, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and death, with an associated 7% rise in mortality for every hour delay in the administration of appropriate therapy.
– Evidently, a diagnostic platform is needed that can quickly identify the presence and type of infectious micro-organism, as well as the type of antibiotic resistance genes that it carries, so as to be able to proscribe the correct type of antimicrobial treatment. Ideally it should be a rapid system with little hands-on time, so as to be used at point of care (PoC) in an intensive care unit by paramedics and GPs, says Wouter van der Wijngaart, associate professor at the Microsystem Technology Lab at KTH, and also Intopsens project manager.
The Intopsens consortium will develop a bench-top readout system and disposable lab-on-chip cartridges for detection of the bacteria and their antibiotic susceptibility from whole blood using ultrasensitive photonic biosensors.
The Intopsens consortium includes academic partners and technology development companies – each of these an expert/pioneer in a core aspect of this truly multidisciplinary scientific challenge. Further, the consortium includes technology end-users, which were chosen to anchor the work in real health care needs and also to create the basis for further development and exploitation.
The Consortium partners include:
KTH - Royal Institute of Technology (project coordinator, SE) Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (ES) University of Aarhus, Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (DK) Universiteit Antwerpen (BE) Universiteit Gent (BE) Farfield Group Ltd (UK) Mobidiag Ltd (FI)
More information on the Intopsens website.
Håkan Soold