# Diagnostics via Rapid Enrichment, Identification, and Phenotypic Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing of Pathogens from Blood.

> **NIH NIH R01** · TALIS BIOMEDICAL CORPORATION · 2020 · $1,109,538

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
This project “Diagnostics via Rapid Enrichment, Identification, and Phenotypic Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing
of Pathogens from Blood,” submitted under RFA-AI-17-014 “Partnerships for Development of Clinically Useful
Diagnostics for Antimicrobial-Resistant Bacteria (R01)” will develop a rapid, sensitive, and specific diagnostic
platform for the culture-independent identification and determination of antimicrobial susceptibility and/or
resistance of bacterial pathogens. The indiscriminate use and misuse of antibiotics has led to an impending
global health crisis: the development of widespread antibiotic resistance. Bloodstream infections (BSI) are
particularly significant with respect to their clinical impact: Severe sepsis strikes more than one million
Americans every year, and 15 to 30 percent of those people die. In the absence of a rapid and reliable
antibiotic susceptibility test (AST), health care providers often resort to broad-spectrum antibiotics, further
escalating the development of drug-resistant strains. Halting the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistant
organisms and providing appropriate life-saving therapy requires point-of-care (POC) diagnostics that can
rapidly measure the drug susceptibility of a pathogen directly from clinical samples, eliminating the lengthy
current procedures that require microbial growth.
This project addresses a critical unmet need for rapid diagnostics that can both identify and determine the
antimicrobial resistance profile of microbial pathogens. To address this problem, we propose to develop a
combination of highly innovative technologies to (1) concentrate viable, low-abundance pathogens directly from
blood without a culture step; (2) demonstrate the compatibility of the enrichment technology with the rapid and
specific multiplexed detection of pathogens; (3) validate the compatibility of enrichment with an innovative,
digital method of determining phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility; and (4) demonstrate that the entire workflow
of pathogen concentration, identification, and phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing can be achieved in
under 2 hours directly from human blood. This multidisciplinary project will be carried out by a highly
experienced industrial research team with outstanding academic and clinical collaborators, and will create a
new paradigm in diagnosis and treatment of bloodstream infections directly from clinical samples at the point-
of-care. Countless lives will be saved and the spread of antibiotic resistance will be halted.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9918850
- **Project number:** 5R01AI139005-03
- **Recipient organization:** TALIS BIOMEDICAL CORPORATION
- **Principal Investigator:** Kyle Andrew Tipton
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,109,538
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-05-11 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9918850

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9918850, Diagnostics via Rapid Enrichment, Identification, and Phenotypic Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing of Pathogens from Blood. (5R01AI139005-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9918850. Licensed CC0.

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