Fast, simple and low-cost infection diagnostics directly at the patient bedside remains an unmet need in the health-care diagnostics market. Currently, rapid tests are available only for the simplest biological parameters (e.g. C-reactive protein, procalcitonin). For complex and life-threatening infectious illnesses however, reliable diagnostics can take place only through laborious and time-consuming procedures with the participation of a central laboratory employing qualified specialists. An example of such an illness is sepsis (“blood poisoning“). Of the approx. 240,000 Sepsis cases per year in Germany half must be treated in the intensive-care unit.
Treatment is complex, because most sepsis-cases are caused by more than 30 different pathogens that make up more than 90% of cases. Additionally some of these pathogens are already resistant against specific anti-fungals and antibiotics. To administer an effective a life-saving therapy, the physician must know which pathogen is present and which pharmaceutical is applicable for the treatment. With a mortality rate of 7% per hour following ICU admission it is critical that this information is conveyed to the physician as rapidly as possible.
In this phase the individual steps of the laboratory model that are divided into separate modules are integrated to the MAZER functional prototype. Different model assays will be transferred to the MAZER system and adapted and optimized on the MinoCard.
In this way all process steps are integrated on a miniaturized compact diagnostics system. In addition a special sample preparation module, that can be connected to the universal MAZER card will be developed and tested.
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