Our goals in this study within the framework of the Personalized Swiss Sepsis Study are 1) to improve the mechanistic understanding of sepsis by studying changes in the populations of microbes present during infection and 2) to predict novel DNA biomarkers (i.e., sequence patterns) to use alongside vital sign measurements for forecasting adverse patient outcomes. In the process, our third goal is 3) to develop an optimal experimental protocol for future biomedical DNA analysis studies on microbes to guide this study and future studies of its kind. This proposal collaborates with clinical experts, ensuring that all steps taken throughout the study will maintain clinical relevance and present feasible treatment opportunities.
We will uphold principles of accessibility and reproducibility throughout the study to ensure that other groups can benefit from our developed methods. Strict separation of patient data-dependent components from the rest of the project allows following data privacy guidelines.