Project description
Point-of-care testing kit for the early sepsis prognosis
Sepsis causes a systemic inflammatory response driven by proinflammatory cytokines and is the leading cause of death in hospital critical care units. Early disease biomarkers are necessary to assist in the decision-making identification of immunocompromised patients. The development of a point-of-care testing kit to enable quick and reliable detection of immunocompromised patients by using blood biomarkers would improve the early prognosis of sepsis. Recently, an in vitro prognostic product was developed that enables the fast detection of early impairment of the NLRP3 inflammasome activation, as a prognostic biomarker in sepsis. The objective of the current EU-funded SPEDI-TEST project is to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility, and evaluate the new business opportunity of the clinical introduction of this novel test.
Objective
Sepsis remains the leading cause of death in critical care units of Hospitals, affecting more that 18 million people worldwide and causes a systemic inflammatory response driven by the production of proinflammatory cytokines. Several studies have been conducted to find out whether data mining and machine learning could be used to identify patients at risk of sepsis. Although the currently available biomarkers can help shorten this decision process, there is still a need for additional early disease biomarkers that could anticipate the decision-making identifying immunocompromised septic patients. In this sense, ongoing efforts in the development of a point-of-care testing kit, enabling quick and reliable detection of immunocompromised patients by using blood biomarkers, will aid greatly the early prognosis of sepsis. In this scenario, the prognosis and therapy selection still remains a clinical decision by assessing the patient’s history, symptoms of infection, and development of acute organ dysfunction. Our group have determined under the ERC consolidator grant ref. 614578 (DangerATP) that during the initial 24 h of the inflammatory response in sepsis, monocytes from human septic patients present an early impairment of the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome that is associated with higher late mortality. This group of septic patients was not identified with any of the clinical or biochemical determinations performed.
We have developed an in vitro prognostic (IVD) product for the fast detection in less than 4 hours of early impairment of the NLRP3 inflammasome activation, as a biomarker for the prognosis in sepsis. This IVD will be used in intensive care units and immunology units of hospitals. The objective of the action is to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility and evaluate the new business opportunity of introducing this novel IVD product.
Fields of science
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinecritical care medicine
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencedata mining
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunology
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
30120 Murcia
Spain