Tirat Carmel, Israel - March 19, 2015 - MeMed, Ltd., today announced publication of the results of a large multicenter prospective clinical study that validates the ability of its ImmunoXpert in-vitro diagnostic blood test to determine whether a patient has an acute bacterial or viral infection. The study enrolled more than 1,000 patients and is published in the March 18, 2015 online edition of PLOS ONE. Unlike most infectious disease diagnostics that rely on direct pathogen detection, MeMed's assay decodes the body's immune response to accurately characterize the cause of the infection. 
 
 Bacterial and viral infections are often clinically indistinguishable, leading to antibiotic overuse and contributing to the spread of antibiotic resistance, which the World Health Organization says is approaching crisis proportions. Paradoxically, the inability to rapidly differentiate infections also results in the underuse of antibiotics, estimated to occur in 20-40% of all bacterial infections, putting patients at risk of complications and increasing healthcare costs. MeMed researchers developed the ImmunoXpert test to accurately distinguish between bacterial and viral infections, with the goal of improving patient management by providing physicians with information that enables them to reduce both the overuse and underuse of antibiotics. 
 
 Eran Eden, PhD, CEO of MeMed, noted, "Antibiotic misuse is a pressing public health concern, with devastating healthcare and economic consequences. Rapid, accurate and actionable diagnostic tools are an important part of the solution because they can aid physicians in making better informed treatment decisions. For the past four years, our team has been collaborating with leading clinicians and scientists from around the world to develop and validate our novel approach for distinguishing between bacterial and viral infections. Unlike most traditional diagnostics, this approach builds on an exquisitely informative system crafted by nature - the human immune system. Our scientists have figured out how to decode the actions of the immune system doing what it does best--detecting and responding to the precise cause of infection." 
 
 MeMed's technology leverages the fact that bacteria and viruses trigger different pathways in the immune system. By conducting extensive screening of immune system proteins in patients with acute infections, researchers identified three soluble proteins that are uniquely activated by bacteria or viruses. They then developed proprietary algorithms that integrate these proteins to produce an immune signature that accurately identifies the cause of infection. 
 
 In the PLOS ONE study, the ImmunoXpert immune signature was developed and independently validated on a cohort of 1002 patients with acute infections and yielded highly accurate results, with sensitivity and specificity greater than 90%. The assay was validated in a diverse group of pediatric and adult patients at different time points after the onset of symptoms (from the first day up to 12 days) and across 56 different pathogen species. ImmunoXpert remained robust over all sub-groups studied. The predictive power of the assay's immune signature outperformed routine biomarker and laboratory tests, as well as combinations of these tests. The signature is amenable to rapid measurement using a blood test run on standard hospital and laboratory-deployed automated platforms, or using a point-of-care device now in development. 
 
 "We conducted big data filtering, followed by extensive screening of 600 immune system-related proteins," said Kfir Oved, PhD, MeMed CTO. "A few of the proteins showed distinctly different patterns in bacterial and viral infected patients. In particular, the most informative protein we found, called TRAIL, dramatically increased in the blood of patients infected with a wide range of viruses, but surprisingly, decreased in bacterial infections. Our team developed an algorithm that computationally integrates TRAIL with other immune proteins to diagnose the cause of the infection with high accuracy." 
 
 The ImmunoXpert immune-based approach overcomes inherent limitations of many traditional diagnostics tools. It is accurate and rapid, it can diagnose infections that are not readily accessible such as pneumonia (because immune system components circulate throughout the entire body), and it prevents false alarms due to the benign presence ("carriage") of potentially pathogenic bacteria and viruses that are not causing active disease. 
 
 "This study represents a breakthrough in our efforts to develop more accurate, rapid and actionable diagnostic tools that improve the management of patients with acute infection." said Professor Isaac Srugo, MD, Head of the Pediatric Department and Microbiology Lab at Bnai Zion Medical Center. "The incorporation of novel viral-induced proteins, currently not in clinical use, enables ImmunoXpert to attain high levels of accuracy, which can help physicians make better informed antibiotic treatment decisions. This should result in more bacterial infected patients receiving timely therapy that is actually useful for treating their illness. Additionally, it can lead to fewer prescriptions to viral patients for whom antibiotics do nothing to speed recovery, while causing potential harm to the larger community." 
 
 MeMed's ImmunoXpert test is CE marked and approved for clinical use in the European Union and Israel. It is currently in pilot distribution in these territories, with a broader commercial roll-out planned for later this year. Additional clinical studies are underway and the company is planning to conduct clinical trials in the U.S. using a specially-designed point-of-care platform currently in development. 
 
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 About MeMed 
 
 MeMed is dedicated to improving patient lives through research, development and commercialization of pioneering products that monitor the body's immune state. Its products decode the immune system's distinct responses to different health and disease states. The company focuses on providing rapid, accurate and actionable diagnostic solutions for acute infectious diseases and inflammatory disorders in the hospital and community. Its most advanced product, ImmunoXpertTM, has demonstrated the ability to accurately detect whether a patient has a bacterial or viral infection, with the aim of empowering physicians to make better informed antibiotic treatment decisions. ImmunoXpert is CE marked and approved for clinical use in the EU and Israel, with pilot distribution efforts underway. For additional information, please visit http://www. me-med. com . 
 
 Notes to Editors 
 
 For more information on the public health crisis caused by the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria, see for example: ||||| Antiseptic used in WWI could hold key to treating superbugs, viral infections, Melbourne researchers say 
 
 Updated 
 
 An antiseptic used to treat wounds during World War I that has been out of use for more than 50 years could help fight superbugs and prevent future pandemics, Melbourne researchers have said. 
 
 The team from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research found that pre-treating people with Acriflavine protected cells against the common cold by triggering an anti-viral immune response. 
 
 The antiseptic, which is made from coal tar, can help prevent viral infections and cure bacterial ones. 
 
 Researcher Dr Michael Gantier says it was originally used to treat wounds and "sleeping sickness" in soldiers during World War I. 
 
 "It's repurposing something that has been around forever. It's not really around anymore because people didn't understand how it worked," he said. 
 
 "It was replaced afterwards by penicillin, but we think that with new bacteria [that are] more and more resistant to treatment it may do a comeback. 
 
 "It's very cheap to make, it's not something you would make if you were a private company trying to make money on drugs." 
 
 Dr Gantier said there were many molecules around that had been reported to have antiviral activity. 
 
 "For instance in green tea extract, even in red wine extract," he said. 
 
 "And we think they may be acting in the same way by binding the DNA on the patients or the host, then promoting this antiviral response." 
 
 He said they found that Acriflavine basically produced a "double effect". 
 
 "On one hand to have an antibacterial effect, and on the other hand we discovered this capacity to instigate an immune response of the host, to protect the host," he said. 
 
 Antiseptic gives patients 'a head start' 
 
 The World Health Organisation has warned of a potential global crisis from the increase in antibiotic resistant bugs, or superbugs. 
 
 And Dr Gantier said the drug's double effect meant that it could help to fight future pandemics. 
 
 "So we think that for patients who are at risk, we could potentially provide them with this drug in a form like a puffer — a bit like you use Ventolin," he said. 
 
 Dr Gantier said those who were pre-treated with the antiseptic were given an edge over infections. 
 
 "So when they've got a head start for when the infection kicks in, they are better off because they've already been primed and they will be able to fight better," he said. 
 
 "We can apply that to people who are resistant to every treatment and that could still have some benefit for them. 
 
 "If there was a new pandemic coming like the Spanish Influenza, which killed more people than the first world war, we may be able to protect people for which we've got no other drugs." 
 
 At the moment the drug is still being studied and has yet to be used in clinical trials. 
 
 "I guess [going back to] this drug which has been used before in humans is potentially easier than making a new drug," he said. 
 
 Dr Gantier attributed the internet with the team's ability to so easily search and find research from the early 1900s. 
 
 "It would have been much harder for me to do this research 20 years ago when it was not around, finding articles from these German researchers," he said. 
 
 And he said people could continue to use the internet and search online for further pharmacological research from earlier days. 
 
 "There are lot of drugs have been used for years … for 50 years before people understood how [they] actually worked," he said. 
 
 "A lot of things are being dropped because they're not that efficient, but in fact going back to them might be a good idea because they're very well characterised." 
 
 Topics: health, vaccines-and-immunity, melbourne-3000, vic 
 
 First posted
– When you're hacking up a lung and it's not getting better, you know you're going to have to visit the doctor. What you (and even the doctor) often don't know is whether that antibiotic Rx you may get is going to work, simply because it's often hard to tell the difference between a viral and bacterial infection. But a study published in PLOS One says that may all change with a blood test that can quickly differentiate between the two, the BBC reports. And if MeMed's ImmunoXpert proves to work as scientists say it does, it could not only get antibiotics more quickly to patients with bacterial infections (the only ones antibiotics work on), but also cut down on patients who don't have bacterial infections from taking them. That's big, because overuse is linked to widespread antibiotic resistance. The study in Israel examined some 1,000 patients, scrutinizing the body's immune response to the sickness and honing in on protein trails that are activated depending on whether an infection is viral or bacterial. In particular, levels in blood of one protein called TRAIL significantly shot up in subjects who had been infected with viruses, while it dropped in patients with bacterial illnesses. The CEO of MeMed says the test works—a post at EurekAlert touts "highly accurate results, with sensitivity and specificity greater than 90%"—and offers results within two hours for most patients, per the BBC. "It is not perfect and it does not replace a physician's judgment, but it is better than many of the routine tests used in practice today," Eran Eden says. (A newly discovered antiobiotic may help fight superbugs.)