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| Image created by Dr. Michael J. Miller |
Day Zero Diagnostics, Inc. (DZD), an infectious disease diagnostics company harnessing the power of whole-genome sequencing and AI to combat the rise of antibiotic-resistant infections, presented three presentations at the 2024 ASM Microbe conference. ASM Microbe is the premier annual conference organized by the American Society of Microbiology and takes place June 13-17, 2024 in Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Jason Wittenbach, Director of Data Science at DZD, presented, as part of the “Rapid AST and Diagnostics Methods” session, results of a study demonstrating DZD’s ability through Keynome®, its machine learning computational platform, to decipher bacterial whole genomes retrieved from patient blood samples and to predict antimicrobial resistance comprehensively and accurately, without the use of culture. In addition, Dr. Wittenbach presented, as part of the symposium “What Will AI Provide to Clinical Microbiology and Public Health in 10 Years”, a large-scale research performed in collaboration with UC Irvine, demonstrating concordance of Keynome gAST results from pathogen WGS inputs – with phenotypic AST.
“Unlike traditional approaches for inferring resistance from pathogen genomes that rely on the detection of resistance genes previously identified by scientists, the machine learning algorithms that power Keynome have deduced the drivers of resistance and susceptibility on their own by sifting through a database of over 75,000 bacterial genomes paired with over 800,000 susceptibility test results,” said Dr. Wittenbach.
Also, Dr. Nicole Billings, Sr. Director of Lab Services and Platform Expansion at DZD, presented results from the feasibility phase of an ongoing clinical study demonstrating DZD’s enrichment process (Pathovate™) capability of recovering clinical pathogen genomes directly from blood for whole genome sequencing, as well as its novel algorithms (Keynome) for bacterial or fungal ID and AST prediction using machine learning.
About Day Zero Diagnostics
Day Zero Diagnostics, Inc., based in Boston, is pioneering a new class of infectious disease diagnostics using whole-genome sequencing and artificial intelligence to revolutionize how the world fights the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. The company’s mission is to change the way infectious diseases are diagnosed and treated by rapidly identifying both the species and the antimicrobial susceptibility profile of severe infections directly from a clinical sample without the need for a culture. Day Zero also offers a family of lab services under the epiXact® brand that utilize proprietary technologies to assist healthcare organizations manage infection outbreaks, investigate organisms of interest, and make high-impact decisions. Day Zero Diagnostics was founded in 2016 by a team of clinicians and scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Research reported in this press release is supported by CARB-X. CARB-X’s funding for this project is provided in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority; under agreement number: 75A50122C00028, and by awards from Wellcome (WT224842) and Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).