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the DRAIGON project
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The DRAIGON Consortium is on a mission to tackle one of the most pressing global health challenges of our time: antibiotic-resistant infections.
In addition to prevention and treatment measures, the early availability of accurate and rapid diagnostics plays an important role in controlling and mitigating the negative impact of AMR.
The current combination of diagnostic methods for identifying MDR pathogens and their antibiotic susceptibility provide only a partial solution to the AMR challenge, are often time- and labor- consuming, and frequently fail to provide sufficient information to improve patient care...
The antimicrobial resistance (AMR) challenge
The emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance are caused by human activity, particularly the excessive use of antimicrobials for treating, preventing, or controlling infections in humans, animals, and plants. As a result, antimicrobial drugs become ineffective against microorganisms, and subsequently, infections become difficult to treat or even untreatable. This in turn increases the risk of severe illness, disability, and death, as well as further spread of AMR (antimicrobial resistance).
AMR is ranked as one of the top global public health threats by the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2023 the European Parliament recognised AMR as one of the top three priority health threats in the EU.
It is estimated that AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and contributed to 4.95 million deaths. In addition to prevention and treatment measures, the early availability of accurate and rapid diagnostics plays an important role in controlling and mitigating the negative impact of AMR. The current combination of diagnostic methods for identifying MDR pathogens and their antibiotic susceptibility provide only a partial solution to the AMR challenge, are often time- and labor- consuming, and frequently fail to provide sufficient information to improve patient care.
Our collaborative effort, funded by European initiatives, brings together the latest in diagnostic technologies and cloud-based AI information to revolutionise the way we combat these infections.
Antibiotic resistance threatens our ability to treat common infections and undermines global advancements in modern medicine.
What sets DRAIGON project apart is our focus on bringing cutting-edge diagnostic technologies closer to the patient.
Combining pioneering technologies with advanced bacterial genetic analysis, we want to provide rapid diagnosis for better patient outcomes.
We invite you to be part of this ground-breaking initiative. Whether you're a healthcare professional, researcher, or simply passionate about global health, there are many ways to engage with us.
Projected impact
DRAIGON funded projects are poised to have a profound impact across all societal domains (Health, Scientific, Economic and Societal), spearheading a revolution in healthcare, advancing scientific understanding of AI in in vitro medical devices, and confronting the challenge of AMR.
Health:
Patients will directly benefit from a more rapid and personalised disease diagnosis and treatment, preventing the further spread of AMR. Scientific: Novel application of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) will potentially solve the critical AMR problem of antibiotic selection, supported by clinical utility and health economic data from leading centres.
Economic:
A cost-effective method that improves patient care by rapid treatment selection, which, combined with reduced multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogen transmission, decreases length of hospitalization and thereby further reduces costs.
Societal:
Fewer isolation measures lead to a reduced workload for healthcare staff and improve procedures for visitors and patients. Rapid and accurate diagnosis of MDR pathogens with improved treatment guidance ultimately reducing the AMR burden. The methodology can be applied broadly and support AMR reduction initiatives in Low or Middle-Income Countries to enhance global pandemic preparedness.
DRAIGON will deliver an intuitive and actionable diagnostic solution for clinical application to implement genome sequencing results into clinical practice. This will ultimately guide antimicrobial therapy to improve patient outcomes and thereby contributing to the global combat against the silent Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) pandemic. The entire workflow from sample preparation to data reporting will be brought to TRL7 during the projected timeline.
Together we can make a difference
DRAIGON consortium aims to develop an innovative in vitro diagnostic device (IVD) that integrates whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and AI (artificial Intelligence) for the rapid and accurate diagnosis of patients infected with multi-drug resistant (MDR) microorganisms.
DRAIGON’s mission:
To achieve these ambitious goals, the DRAIGON Consortium identified the following specific objectives:
Optimisation of bacterial growth in blood culture bottles for human blood and synovial fluid as exemplary specimen types.
Application of cloud-based analysis software using AI models for antibiotic susceptibility prediction, AMR marker detection and genomic surveillance.
Clinical utility studies addressing bloodstream infections (BSI) and prosthetic joint infections (PJI).
Capacity-building and proof-of-concept studies in a medium-resource environment.
Development of automated liquid handling and sequencing scaled for ‘near point-of-care’.
Regulatory plan for In Vitro Diagnostic
Regulation acceptance.
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