Simple Blood Draw Detects Dangerous Pathogens

Liquid biopsy has attracted a surge of companies that are trying to change the way cancer is detected and monitored. But the benefits of this new type of technology can - and should - seep into other disease categories. Redwood City, CA-based Karius, for example, is leveraging liquid biopsy technology to give doctors an upper hand on difficult-to-diagnose infectious diseases. New findings show the potential clinical utility of its the Karius Test to detect pathogens causing serious infections using a simple blood draw. This includes pathogens that are otherwise difficult to culture or identify without an invasive biopsy. "Rigorous clinical studies of the Karius Test continue to show its ability to identify and quantify pathogens from a single blood test," said Mickey Kertesz, the company's CEO and co-founder. "In some of the studies, this was the first time that a non-invasive method was able to identify pathogens that were previously only detectable with invasive biopsies." The inspiration for the company originated in 2014 while Kertesz and other researchers were at Stanford University studying cell-free DNA signals from organ transplant patients. It was through that work that the researchers figured out there was a weak signal coming from microbes. "And the question we asked was 'can this signal be enhanced and used, potentially for diagnostic purposes in infectious disease'," Kertesz told MD+DI during a 2017 interview. The K...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: IVD Source Type: news