Yorkshire firms lead sepsis test research

TWO Yorkshire businesses are joining forces with scientists to develop a new way to diagnose the life threatening illness sepsis.

Biotech start-up MicroLab Devices is heading up a consortium that includes fellow yorkshire company Forsite Diagnostics and the University of Liverpool working on the problem.

MicroLab Devices managing director Tom Myers said: “Surviving sepsis is all about its early detection. The early symptoms of sepsis are fever like, therefore easy to misdiagnose.

“If the condition is diagnosed and treated in the first hour following presentation, the patient has more than an 80% survival rate. After the sixth hour, the patient only has a 30% chance of survival.

“Currently, hospital tests can take several hours from taking a blood sample to starting treatment. For me the most alarming fact about sepsis is that it is our own body’s over-response to infection that can kill you.”

The consortium is working to develop a disposable test based on research by Dr Enitan Carrol, at the University of Liverpool, that his identified biomarkers that can point to the early stages of sepsis.

The test could give medical staff results within five minutes.