The three models will be located next to each other, interconnected by a microfluidic device, which Popp says is a core component of the HemoSpec platform. “The technologies are not being integrated in such a way that everything would be in one device. We only need to inject a small amount of blood into the microfluidic device and then the three modules are addressed separately,” he explains. “This information will then be combined together and analysed using a bioinformatic tool.” The HemoSpec platform will make this information available to clinicians via one common user interface, with common data storage and analysis software. The information needs to be presented in a clear and accessible way, so researchers are working closely with clinicians to ensure the platform meets their needs. “The software developers will provide a software platform, and then the physicians will be able to say which bits of information they need and which they don’t. Then it will go back to the software developers, and they can work to improve it further,” says Dr Ute Neugebauer, a Principal Investigator within the project. A pre-clinical trial is being run with about 80 patients, from which information will be gathered and a data structure made available, giving software developers a solid basis for the development of a prototype, which will be rigorously tested and assessed. “At the end of the project there will be a prospective clinical trial in Athens, involving a total of 250 patients,” says Giamarellos-Bourboulis.
Wider potential These patients will include not only individuals suffering from sepsis, but also patients with injuries, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and other conditions, underlining the wider potential of the device. Giamarellos-
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Bourboulis says the HemoSpec device could be used both in hospitals and everyday clinical practice to rapidly diagnose the true nature of a patient’s condition, which may not be immediately clear from their physical symptoms. “For instance, the device could be used to diagnose a patient who comes in to a clinical setting with fever and signs of common cold. The device can be used to identify whether this patient is just suffering from a common cold, or has pneumonia that has not fully manifested,” he outlines. The HemoSpec device will also help clinicians identify those patients who require quite an aggressive course of treatment. “We have to follow a very aggressive path of medical decisions in order to save the lives of patients at a high risk of death. Life-saving decisions should be taken within the first hour of a patient suffering a severe infection being admitted,” explains GiamarellosBourboulis. The focus at the moment however is on sepsis, improving the platform further and demonstrating its efficacy. This could in future be achieved through a randomised clinical approach, where the HemoSpec platform is tested against conventional methods of diagnosing sepsis. “We expect that a randomised trial will show that the HemoSpec diagnoses individual patients correctly,” says Giamarellos-Bourboulis. This will help clinicians identify the right course of treatment for each individual patient, who will then be able to leave hospital earlier, leading to significant cost savings. This is very much a long-term objective though, and currently researchers are continuing to work to miniaturize and optimize the device, as well as to integrate the individual parts. “The next stage will be to put everything together in one device and achieve this highly integrated system. This will be the next task,” says Popp.
At a glance Full Project Title Advanced spectroscopic hemogram for personalized care against life-threatening infections using an integrated chip-assisted bio-photonic system (HEMOSPEC) Project Objectives HEMOSPEC is a 4-year project that aims to develop an innovative technological platform for early, fast and reliable medical diagnosis of infectious diseases using minimal amounts of patient’s blood. The project combines in one device automated microfluidic sample handling with integrated holographic blood count, simultaneous multiplex fluorescence biomarker sensing and detailed Raman spectroscopic leukocyte characterisation. Project Funding Total costs of the project: €5,069,233. Total funding of the project: €3,777,000. Project Partners • Please see http://www.hemospec.eu/ index.php/consortium Contact Details Principal Investigator, Dr Ute Neugebauer Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology Albert-Einstein-Strasse 9 07745 Jena GERMANY T: +49 3641 206 327 E: ute.neugebauer@ipht-jena.de W: www.ipht-jena.de [1]
Ute Neugebauer
Principal Investigator
Ute Neugebauer studied chemistry at the University of Jena, Germany, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. After her Ph.D. she joined the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute, Dublin, Ireland for post-doctoral research. Since March 2011 she is a junior research group leader at the Center for Sepsis Control and Care, Jena University Hospital, and at the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology Jena. Her research is concerned with spectroscopic methods and tools to elucidate biomedical problems and the characterization of physiological interactions with a special focus on the diagnostics of infectious diseases and sepsis.
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