Sepsis kills five million people per year. Although it has many symptoms, they can be difficult to detect, so identifying it is very challenging. Cases can go undetected until more extreme symptoms are noticeable, by which time it is often too late to save the patient’s life.
Professor Peter Ghazal (Sêr Cymru Chair in Systems Medicine at Cardiff University) is leading research into both the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis. Project Sepsis, a study involving academics, clinicians and patients, aims to improve neonatal sepsis care and also understanding of the condition in children and adults. The study integrates three different disciplines – Mathematics, Medicine and Biology.
Using preterm babies to study how the immune system reacts to sepsis, researchers have found a signature set of biomarkers with three biological pathways comprising different arms of the immune system and metabolism. When these biomarkers are combined, they are able to predict with extremely high accuracy the presence of a bacterial infection underlying the illness. By enabling earlier, more reliable diagnosis of sepsis, and finding new medical interventions, Project Sepsis has the potential to meet a currently unmet clinical need and save a significant number of lives.
Pilot studies have led to the discovery that these markers and biological pathways can also be used to predict sepsis in children and adults. The project aims to clinically validate this new method of detection across all ages and to uncover mechanisms, especially those linking immunity with metabolism, which drive sepsis and could be used to devise new treatments. The work has involved developing methods that allow researchers to use very small quantities of blood in order to decode the messages from immune cells that provide information about the response to infection. This provides very high sensitivity and specificity, as the bacteria that trigger sepsis do not have to be present in the sample.
This material first appeared in Advances Wales, The Journal for Science, Engineering and Technology (Issue 89, Summer 2019, page 9).