The ultimate goal of the project is to create a new, technical demanding device with a new diagnosis concept along the full value chain from development to innovation
and also to provide a first proof of concept in the clinical environment. This clinical proof of concept will enable formal assessment of the clinical utility of the HemoSpec
device in a subsequent clinical study.
Scientific and Technical Objectives
- combination and miniaturization of optic micro-spectroscopic technology to assess the activation state of blood cells in correlation with the medical characterization of the patient
- achieving higher depth of information and reliability than current gold standard methods with high aimed sensitivity (>80%) and specificity (>85%)
- reducing analysis steps (information will be gained from a single blood samples instead of multiple measurements) and speeding up analysis time and reducing required amount of blood
- developing a miniaturized (portable) integrated fluorescence multiplex bioassay technology for combined powerful and fast biomarker identification combined in a multiplex assay for early, fast and reliable diagnosis
- utilizing the advantages of lab-on-a-chip technology for direct integration of highly automated miniaturized sample management and processing into photonic systems for information readout
- developing control and data analysis software and user interface software for automated data analysis from the novel multiplex photonic diagnostic tool
- demonstrating a proof-of-concept fully integrated multiplex optical device for advanced spectroscopic hemogram with a new level of information
- providing a surrogate that gets beyond the "clinical feeling", rendering rational test based decisions and by this increasing the level of confidence regarding resource allocation and treatment decision
Economic Objectives
- create and commercialize a new, powerful diagnostic tool not available to the market today
- strengthen the European competitiveness by providing innovation to the European science community and the European industry
- develop innovative components
Societal and Health Care Objectives
- improve meaningful and substantiated diagnosis which will simplify the administration of the right therapy
- improve patient’s outcome by predicting/indicating the response to treatment (guidance to antibiotic treatment)
- reduce unnecessary use of antibiotics to prevent accelerated growth of antimicrobial resistance
- improve specialized clinical care for the patients with predicted unfavourable outcome based on prediction of outcome
- improve appropriate resource allocation (e. g. allocate intensive care treatment)
- help the physician to identify high risk patient before the situation already manifests and becomes obvious, e. g. detecting incipient organ failure by providing a rapid (<1hour) identification, description of pathogens, host response and organ failure
- help to early identify patients at risk, which is especially important in the light of current demographic situation
- optimize therapy for each patient (individualized therapy based on POC diagnosis HemoSpec)