Originally held live on 18th November 2020, the PERFORM consortium in collaboration with sister Horizon2020 project, DIAMONDS, held a stakeholder engagement webinar. The speakers, including Prof Mike Levin, chief investigator of both research projects, presented the main results of PERFORM (PErsonalised Risk assessment in Febrile illness to Optimise Real-life Management across the European Union) and the next steps in DIAMONDS. The speakers presented their work in developing simple personalized tests to distinguish between bacterial and viral infection using transcriptomic and proteomic biomarkers, and identifying the best management strategies for using these new tests in the varied healthcare settings of Europe. The speakers also explored how DIAMONDS will take this research further through existing devices and new prototypes via an innovative approach called Personalised Molecular Signature Diagnosis (PMSD).
SPEAKER PROGRAMME:
Aims of PERFORM and why we need better diagnostic approaches to identifying bacterial infection – Prof. Mike Levin, Imperial College London (UK)
The PERFORM Clinical Cohort: a multi-country prospective hospital cohort for study of febrile children – Prof. Federico Martinón-Torres, Servizo Galego de Saude (Spain)
Emergency care in febrile children in Europe: the MOFICHE study – Prof. Dr. Henriëtte Moll, Erasmus Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
How molecular pathogen detection in blood and respiratory mucosa is changing our perspective of the bacterial/viral paradigm – Prof. Colin Fink & Dr Marie Voice, Micropathology (UK)
First session Q&A
Identifying host blood RNA biomarker signatures to diagnose bacterial infection – Dr. Myrsini Kaforou, Imperial College London (UK)
Identifying plasma protein biomarkers to distinguish bacterial and viral infection – Prof. Taco Kuijpers, Academic Medical Center Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Translation of host biomarkers into a diagnostic test – Dr. Karen Brengel-Pesce, bioMérieux (France)
Cost and social factors in the introduction of a test – Prof. Shunmay Yeung, The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (UK)
Second session Q&A
Concluding remarks – Prof. Mike Levin
