NEW YORK — German bioinformatics firm Noscendo has signed an agreement to collaborate with the University Hospital Bonn to characterize antibiotic-resistant pathogens using its Disqver next-generation sequencing-based diagnostic platform, the partners said on Monday.
Noscendo's Disqver is designed to analyze sequenced cell-free DNA from patient blood samples against a database of over 6,000 pathogens in order to detect bacteria, fungi, DNA viruses, and parasites, according to the company.
Under the alliance, Noscendo will work with the University Hospital Bonn's Institute for Hygiene and Public Health (IHPH) to molecularly characterize up to 8,000 antibiotic-resistant pathogens from more than 35 species in the institute's strain bank using Disqver, with the goal of expanding the recently CE-marked platform's use to include direct differentiation of antibiotic resistances.
"The IHPH's expertise is a significant help for us to continue further development with regards to the detection of resistances within our Disqver platform in order to define a new gold standard for the identification of pathogens," Noscendo Director Philip Stevens said in a statement.