Abstract

Microfluidic Assay for the Diagnosis of Sepsis from a Drop of Blood

Daniel Irimia, Associate Professor/Associate Director, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School

Sepsis is a deadly condition which ends the life of more than 5 million people worldwide every year, more than heart disease and stroke combined.  Sepsis is often misdiagnosed, delaying treatment.  To improve the survival of sepsis patients, new capabilities for diagnosis and monitoring of sepsis are needed.  Towards this goal, we focused on neutrophils, the most numerous white blood cells and earliest responders to infections and sepsis.  Recently, we uncovered a unique neutrophil phenotype during sepsis.  The phenotype can only be measured while neutrophils are still in blood and vanishes after neutrophils are isolated from blood. Newly designed microfluidic assays that use blood directly were instrumental for this discovery.  So far, we validated the new neutrophil phenotype as an accurate biomarker for sepsis in three cohorts of patients in intensive care.  Further studies will enhance our understanding of the roles that neutrophils play before and during sepsis and will facilitate the design of new strategies for the diagnosis, monitoring, and prevention of sepsis.