Poster Presenter

Whole Genome Analysis to Predict Sepsis Progression and Outcome: Translating Nextgen Sequencing into Improved Diagnostic Devices and Therapeutics
Jennifer C van Velkinburgh, Ray J Langley, and Stephen F Kingsmore
USA

The Community Acquired Pneumonia and Sepsis Outcomes Diagnostics (CAPSOD) project is a multidisciplinary collaboration involving investigators at ten organizations. Since 2005, we have been prospectively enrolling a diverse geographical, socioeconomic and ethnic population of patients (n=1000) with suspected sepsis. Each patient is monitored for outcome out to 28 days or death, whichever comes first. Blood samples collected at set time points are analyzed for specific changes in epigenomic profiles to identify a distinct diagnostic signature that will predict outcomes in sepsis. We use a high-throughput sequencing system (Illumina Genome Analyzer II) to generate high-quality giga-base sequence, and bioinformatics tools developed in-house (Alpheus) to analyze transcriptomic, genomic and methylomic variation in accordance with biological function. Together with proteomic and metabolomic parallel analysis, we are applying a uniquely comprehensive systems biology approach to understand sepsis disease progression and define outcome characteristics in order to create efficient molecular diagnostics and treatments.