TGen and NAU awarded grant to identify pathogen signatures

The first investigation to be undertaken will aim to improve the understanding and management of sepsis and community acquired pneumonia (CAP). This multi-year project is expected to further progress toward more rapid and accurate tools for treating patients afflicted by these deadly pathogens.

Sepsis and CAP are among the top ten leading causes of death for most age groups worldwide, according to the US Centers for Disease Control. A 25% reduction in mortality due to sepsis has the potential to save the lives of 50,000 people in the US and over one million individuals worldwide each year, according to estimates from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Supported by Applied Biosystems, the project aims to discover pathogen-specific DNA signatures. These signatures will then be used to design and validate Applied Biosystems TaqMan Real-time PCR assays for the accurate identification of these life-threatening infections.

Verification and validation in a clinical laboratory setting will take place through the Laboratory Services of Arizona (LSA) and the Banner Health System. In addition, an informatics system will be developed for handling assay data during the validation and eventually for handling associated clinical data in a HIPAA compliant environment.

“A major challenge facing health care providers in the successful treatment of medical conditions such as sepsis and CAP is the inability to rapidly and consistently diagnosis these conditions,” said Dr Paul Keim, director of Pathogen Genomics at TGen and director of the Microbial Genetics and Genomics ABOR Center at Northern Arizona University.

“By coupling the genomic signature analysis from our initial research to high-throughput assays we can validate signatures very rapidly and accelerate the advancement of this technology for improving public health.”