Sepsis is the body's overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. Medically, sepsis is your body's immune system over-responding to an infection. Key to saving lives in sepsis is detecting it early enough and managing it optimally. Seroxo has developed the Leukocyte ImmunoTest(tm) (LIT(tm)) as a portable, rapid near-patient test of immune dysfunction. In recent clinical trials the company has shown that it could be an ideal test for sepsis, because it picks up signals earlier and more accurately than previous markers and can be used to predict clinical outcome. In this project Seroxo will team up with a leading design team (ITERATE) to address a clinical area of critical importance, namely sepsis that occurs in mothers and newborn babies at childbirth. Indeed, maternal sepsis is the underlying cause of 11% of all maternal deaths globally and a significant contributor to many deaths attributed to other underlying conditions. Scientists estimate approximately 500,000 mothers and newborns die globally each year due to sepsis, many in resource-limited countries. The teams will use a Planet-centred Design approach and input from clinical collaborators in South Africa to ensure the new designs to be developed here are fit for purpose. The teams will also create 3D-printed demonstrator models for use in assessing usability of the product in a real-world setting in South Africa, which will help ensure the design is suitable for other LMICs.

Sepsis is the body's overwhelming and life-threatening response to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death. Medically, sepsis is your body's immune system over-responding to an infection. Key to saving lives in sepsis is detecting it early enough and managing it optimally. Seroxo has developed the Leukocyte ImmunoTest(tm) (LIT(tm)) as a portable, rapid near-patient test of immune dysfunction. In recent clinical trials the company has shown that it could be an ideal test for sepsis, because it picks up signals earlier and more accurately than previous markers and can be used to predict clinical outcome. In this project Seroxo will team up with a leading design team (ITERATE) to address a clinical area of critical importance, namely sepsis that occurs in mothers and newborn babies at childbirth. Indeed, maternal sepsis is the underlying cause of 11% of all maternal deaths globally and a significant contributor to many deaths attributed to other underlying conditions. Scientists estimate approximately 500,000 mothers and newborns die globally each year due to sepsis, many in resource-limited countries. The teams will use a Planet-centred Design approach and input from clinical collaborators in South Africa to ensure the new designs to be developed here are fit for purpose. The teams will also create 3D-printed demonstrator models for use in assessing usability of the product in a real-world setting in South Africa, which will help ensure the design is suitable for other LMICs.

Sepsis is the body's extreme response to an infection. It is a life-threatening medical emergency that happens when an infection you already have triggers a chain reaction throughout your body. Sepsis affects approximately 250,000 people in the UK each year and leads to approximately 48,000 deaths. Early diagnosis is key to improved clinical outcomes; however, currently no single biomarker exists for sepsis diagnosis which instead is diagnosed using a method based on observation of clinical parameters such as altered mental state, high breathing rate, and low blood pressure. Thus, there is an urgent need for novel approaches that enable rapid bedside diagnosis and monitoring of sepsis. Seroxo has developed the innovative Leukocyte ImmunoTest(tm) (LIT(tm)), a rapid (10-minute), portable, point-of-care (POC), finger-prick blood test, which has been shown in early clinical studies conducted in both Birmingham (UK) and Turkey to be a potentially game-changing test for bedside sepsis diagnosis and monitoring. The LIT monitors the function of certain white blood cells, something which is now known to be significantly altered in ICU sepsis patients. In a recent clinical study of sepsis patients we recently found the parameter we measure to be dramatically altered in sepsis patients, meaning it could be a useful marker In this project we will develop links with Critical Care (i.e., ICU) and Emergency Department specialist clinicians and Key Opinion Leaders in the USA to raise awareness and start to plan clinical trials in the US. These will be key as part of the company's long-term strategy to launch in the US after its initial launch in the UK. The project will also help the team establish a network of business development contacts working in the diagnostics industry in the USA to prepare for commercial launch and will enable us to begin high-level preparation of the regulatory framework for the USA. Success in this project will lead to an improved bedside tool for diagnosis and monitoring of this debilitating and costly condition affecting millions worldwide. It will be a key basis upon which Seroxo builds a world-leading clinical diagnostics company that will create dozens of knowledge-intensive jobs for the UK and in time will lead to improved clinical outcomes for millions around the world.

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has had a huge impact on the lives of millions around the country. A particular challenge has been faced by cancer patients, who have been forced to miss regular checkups and tests over recent months because of their elevated risks of infection (the immune systems of cancer - and especially chemotherapy - patients are often suppressed, making them more vulnerable to infections like COVID-19) and due to the redeployment of healthcare staff to fight the COVID challenge. Much like the transformation that occurred following the introduction of the home diabetes test, what is needed are new innovative methods of home monitoring of cancer patients (especially those undergoing chemotherapy) to reduce the number of necessary visits to hospital that chemo patients must make, reduce the healthcare burden on the NHS, lower the carbon footprint and make the lives of chemo patients and their families a little bit easier. Seroxo is addressing this need through redeployment of its proprietary Leukocyte _ImmunoTest_(TM) ten-minute, finger-prick blood test into this space and development of an accompanying smartphone App. The key innovations in this project will be in demonstrating the usefulness of the test for monitoring the immune systems of chemotherapy patients and the development of a smartphone app that will monitor and display results over time for use by both clinician and patient. This will benefit the lives of the over 100,000 patients undergoing chemotherapy each year in the UK, and will benefit healthcare systems by reducing numbers of monitoring checkups, making the provision of world-leading healthcare and support in the UK even more efficient.