Multiparametric Microfluidic System for the Point-Of-Care detection of sepsis

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by a dysregulated response of the host’s immune system to infection. If not treated immediately, it can result in multiple organ failure and death.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), sepsis affects approximately 30 million people worldwide every year, leading to potentially 6 million deaths.

The main challenges associated with this condition are that it is, on the one hand, challenging to diagnose in its early stages when it is still potentially reversible, and, on the other hand, it is often confused with non-life-threatening diseases such as flu or gastroenteritis.

Current clinical approaches to diagnose sepsis in low-complexity healthcare settings (where most patients are admitted at first) fail to provide the required sensitivity and specificity to overcome these challenges.

Portable, fast and economical technologies that help to infer sepsis accurately are therefore vital to tackle these challenges.

This project aims to develop a portable, low-cost microfluidic platform which has the capability to detect sepsis under 1 hour and has sensitivity and specificity levels above 90%.

This platform is based on the quantification of several blood rheological parameters that are affected by this pathology. Previous research has shown that these parameters have clinical relevance for the early diagnosis of sepsis.

The project will be executed in the company Micronit Microtechnologies BV (host institution) located in the Netherlands under the supervision of Dr. Maciej Skolimowski.

This project also includes a secondment in the Department of Intensive Care at the Erasme Hospital – Université Libre de Bruxelles (secondment institution) located in Belgium under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Louis Vincent. The duration of the project is 24 months.