A-SEP, 2021 ~
Endotoxin Detecting Technology, Paper Microfluidics, Dimensions Variables
*Harvard Graduate School of Design and Harvard John A. Paulson School Of Engineering And Applied Sciences
Jiwon Woo, Jenn Yoolim Kim, Haritosh Patel, Victor Champagne
**Harvard Innovation Lab, President's Innovation Challenge Finalist
***National Inventors Hall of Fame - Collegiate Inventors Competition Finalist
Sepsis is a silent killer that kills fast. This is because during sepsis, your immune system overreacts to an infection that leads to multi-organ failure. For sepsis, timing is everything. In just 12 hours, your survival rate decreases to 16%. The current approach to diagnose sepsis is first to look for decline in vitals and follow-up with a blood culture to detect infection. This approach may look perfect on the surface but can miss sepsis easily. Vitals decline in later stages of sepsis and blood cultures take 24 hours for results.
With A-SEP, we are shifting the paradigm of how sepsis is diagnosed by detecting infection before it is too late. The novelty of our kit is that we use proprietary paper microfluidic technology to rapidly quantify infection risk. The paper strip is able to accurately detect the endotoxin concentration within the blood plasma. We have derisked this technology with preliminary studies at Harvard Labs and protected it with a portfolio of patents that covers the paper technology itself and the kit composition. The technology is market ready and has a simple 510(k) regulatory roadmap with pre-clinical trials.
