Unity Health Toronto

Purpose

The overall goal is to develop “ARIADNE” (platform for Accelerated and pRecisIon pAndemic Diagnostics and iNfection hEalth), a novel decentralized molecular analytical tool for deployment in the ‘non-expert’ care settings for timely stratification and triage of patients. The proof-of-principle work will target sepsis, a complex and heterogeneous life-threatening dysregulated response to infection that rapidly progresses to multi-organ failure and death when not identified and treated appropriately. It integrates NRC's microfluidic technology (PowerBlade) with novel gene circuit-based molecular sensors, facilitated by machine learning algorithms for biomarker refinement. This project leverages unique strengths of the multidisciplinary collaboration that combines the clinical translational capacity of our team at St. Michael’s Hospital (University of Toronto), synthetic biology expertise and molecular sensor chemistry at the UoT and Boston University, the bioinformatics know-how of our collaborators at Simon Fraser University, ML expertise at DT, NRC’s unique microfluidic technology developed by the MD group.