BIOTOPE - Biomarkers to Diagnose Pneumonia

Joe Gallagher together with Chris Watson of University College Dublin in Ireland will develop a method to quickly and accurately diagnose bacterial pneumonia in children with acute respiratory infections so that the correct treatments can be given. Physical symptoms of bacterial pneumonia are similar to many other diseases including malaria but they require vastly different treatments. They will use a screening approach to identify protein, metabolite or miRNA biomarkers of bacterial pneumonia in blood and urine samples from 500 children in Malawi clinics with a known diagnosis of pneumonia. The most specific biomarker panel will be combined with a selected panel of symptoms such as heart and breathing rate to generate a highly sensitive clinical prediction model that specifically diagnoses bacterial pneumonia and can be used in low- to middle-income countries.