By Diagnostics World News Staff
December 12, 2019 | Ontera and QuantuMDx announced a collaboration this week to create a next-generation solution for blood stream infection and drug resistance detection. The technology will be based on QuantuMDx’s rapid cell/sample preparation technology, Capture-XT, and Ontera’s powerful nanopore biosensor, currently used in their SAM and DUO Nano platforms.
The combined technologies should enable clinicians to quickly interrogate blood specimens of those presenting with sepsis signs and symptoms, allowing guided “right first time” care management, at the bedside.
Sepsis affects more than 30 million people worldwide every year leading to an estimated 6 million deaths. If it’s not recognized early and managed promptly with targeted antibiotics, sepsis can lead to septic shock, multiple organ failure and death.
QuantuMDx’s Capture-XT technology captures, concentrates, and enriches targeted pathogens from a large sample volume, quickly enabling visual diagnosis and downstream utilization, such as drug-susceptibility analysis, PCR, NGS and now nanopore detection.
Ontera’s single pore platform provides fast amplification of multiple bacterial targets, differentiation between antibiotic resistant and susceptible strains. The company uses silicon nanopore for in-minutes quantitative measurement of nucleic acids, proteins, and small molecules, avoiding time-consuming laboratory procedures that can delay lifesaving, fast, and precise treatment.
“Sepsis is one of the hardest diseases to detect. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, due to the low concentration of organisms in the blood stream that cause disease,” Jonathan O’Halloran, Chief Scientific Officer at QuantuMDx, said in a press release announcing the collaboration. “Our early prototype testing has already shown sensitivity in the range required for this kind of test and performed in minutes from spiked bacteria in whole blood. We haven’t even pushed the technology yet, but it has the potential to become a paradigm-shifting, powerful device. And, by including drug resistance in the assay to enable right first time prescribing, the impact of this partnership could be profound.”
“Today, 30% of patients receive inappropriate antimicrobial therapy. By not only identifying sepsis but also resistance to most common antibiotics in less than 30 minutes, we will transform the sepsis landscape and impact lives,” said Murielle Thinard McLane, CEO of Ontera, in the same statement. “We have set out on a mission to democratize access to molecular information to create a more sustainable planet. This collaboration with QuantuMDx is a major proof point along that mission.”