Karius Announces Winners of the 2018 Clinical Investigator Awards
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — October 1, 2018 — Karius, a life sciences company transforming infectious disease diagnostics with genomics, today announced the winners for its 2018 Clinical Investigator Awards for Applied Infectious Disease Genomics. The winners are Dr. Georgios Kitsios of the University of Pittsburgh and Dr. James Wood of Indiana University. Both investigators will receive institutional grants of $50,000 each for novel research proposals applying the Karius cell-free DNA test for infectious diseases in the fields of severe pneumonia and pediatric bone and joint infections.
“We are excited to award these grants to Dr. Kitsios and Dr. Wood. They are both very talented investigators and share our excitement in applying next-generation sequencing to infectious disease diagnostics. We look forward to working with them to demonstrate how this novel diagnostic approach can improve the management of patients with pneumonia and osteomyelitis,” said Dr. David Hong, VP of Medical Affairs and Clinical Development for Karius.
Dr. Kitsios’ project, Rapid Pneumonia Pathogen Identification with DNA Sequencing, will use the Karius Test to identify causative pathogens in patients with pneumonia to better understand the role those pathogens play in disease. Current diagnostic approaches for pneumonia are primarily culture-based and can have long incubation times. Even when using PCR or antigen-based testing, a pathogen is not identified in most cases. This can result in long courses of broad empiric antibiotics. This study from Dr. Kitsios may enable physicians to more precisely target antimicrobials in these patients.
Dr. Wood’s project, Plasma-Based Next-Generation Sequencing for Pathogen Detection and Quantification in Children with Musculoskeletal Infections, aims to evaluate the use of the Karius Test in children with musculoskeletal infections, comparing it with standard culture methods. Musculoskeletal infections require prompt diagnosis and treatment due to the risk of local tissue destruction and metastatic bacterial spread. Current diagnostic processes require the isolation of a causative organism, but this remains challenging for nearly half of all musculoskeletal infections in children, due to prior antibiotic use, lack of surgical or drainage procedures, or difficulty growing certain organisms in culture. By more precise identification of the causal pathogen, antibiotics can be narrowed to more effectively treat the infection.
About the Karius Clinical Investigator Awards for Applied Infectious Disease Genomics
The Karius Clinical Investigator Awards for Applied Infectious Disease Genomics are grants offered by Karius for promising research using next-generation sequencing to study human pathogens. The purpose of these grants is to accelerate research focused on infectious disease diagnostics and to positively impact human health.
About Karius, Inc.
Karius is a life sciences company focused on transforming infectious disease diagnosis through the innovative use of next-generation sequencing to analyze microbial cell-free DNA. The Karius laboratory is CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited to perform high-complexity clinical laboratory testing. The company’s genomics platform and clinically-curated pathogen database deliver unprecedented insight into the microbial landscape, providing clinicians with a comprehensive, quantitative test capable of identifying more than a thousand pathogens directly from blood. For more information, visit kariusdx.com and follow us on Twitter at @kariusdx.