International project targets faster sepsis pathogen identification

The funding will support further development of a technology that, in a recently published paper in BMJ Case Reports, identified likely infection-causing pathogens several days before they were confirmed using conventional diagnostic methods in a patient being treated for sepsis.

One of the major challenges in treating sepsis is identifying the pathogen responsible for an infection quickly enough to support timely clinical decision-making. Against that backdrop, research into blood-based diagnostics has the potential to contribute to the wider effort to improve how clinicians understand and respond to the condition.

The GeSIC project brings together the team of Professor Maïwenn Kersaudy-Kerhoas from Heriot-Watt University's School of Engineering and Physical Sciences and a clinical team at the University Medical Center Mainz, with the University of Mainz acting as the university partner.

The collaboration is focused on advancing a rapid blood-based DNA sequencing approach designed to identify infection-causing pathogens, bringing together Heriot-Watt's engineering expertise and clinical knowledge from intensive care. The newly funded phase is expected to begin in January 2027 and will extend work already underway between the teams.

The partnership has already resulted in a medical case report published earlier this year in the BMJ Case Reports, produced collaboratively by Professor Kersaudy-Kerhoas and the medical team in Mainz. The medical case study provides an early real-world example of the potential of the approach. In a patient being treated for sepsis whose standard blood cultures remained negative throughout her stay in hospital, the blood-based DNA sequencing test developed by Heriot-Watt University identified two likely infection-causing pathogens, several days before they were confirmed through other bodily fluid cultures.

Conventional culture techniques can take between two and seven days to identify a pathogen and may return negative results in over 60% of suspected sepsis cases. The case report explored a different route, looking for fragments of microbial DNA circulating in a patient's blood rather than waiting for organisms to grow in a laboratory culture.

Using the iSEP-SEQ research workflow, the complete analytical process took approximately six hours. Although the result was generated within a research setting and did not guide treatment in this case, the findings highlight the potential for this type of technology to support faster pathogen identification alongside existing diagnostics, particularly where conventional cultures are delayed or negative.

Professor Maïwenn Kersaudy-Kerhoas, Professor in Microfluidic Engineering and co-academic lead of Heriot-Watt University’s Global Research Institute in Health and Care Technologies said: "The fast identification of pathogens remains one of the most complex challenges facing healthcare systems around the world. Our iSEP-SEQ approach can accelerate the identification of any pathogen in circulation in the patient and has the potential to make a meaningful difference by enabling better patient management and correct therapeutics. This award gives us the opportunity to take an established international collaboration into its next phase and continue bringing engineering and clinical expertise together around a significant challenge in intensive care. Our work with colleagues in Mainz has already created valuable links between the laboratory and the clinical environment. The next stage will allow us to build on that foundation, with accelerating clinical validation for patient benefits at the heart of the collaboration.”

• Hoeter K, Marriott L, Neuberger EWI, et al. Plasma metagenomic cfDNA sequencing identifies pathogens in culture-negative sepsis following urinary pouch rupture. BMJ Case Reports CP 2026;19:e267878. doi:10.1136/bcr-2025-267878.