Chicago, IL – July 29, 2025 – BLASTID and Q-linea today announce successful proof-of-concept of direct-from-whole-blood ultra-rapid organism isolation, enrichment and phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST).

Sepsis and bloodstream infections impact millions of patients globally each year and is one of the deadliest and most expensive conditions treated in hospitals. Rapid sepsis progression means that delay of appropriate treatment significantly increases mortality risk and healthcare costs. BLASTID™ and Q-linea have developed technologies to reduce time to clinically actionable results from days to hours from blood draw, even at ultra-low pathogen concentrations.

Initial work, presented today at the Association for Laboratory Medicine and Diagnostics (ADLM2025) Conference in Chicago, focuses on the clinically-significant ESKAPE bacterial panel. Pathogen isolation and enrichment was achieved using BLASTID’s SPLENDID™ platform with rapid AST performed on Q-linea’s ASTar instrument. Results demonstrate technical feasibility to deliver a full isolation, enrichment, and AST test result with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values in less than 8 hours from patient blood draw.

BLASTID CEO & President, Dr. Paulo Garcia, commented, "It’s all about time & accuracy when it comes to saving lives of sepsis patients. Our active collaboration with Q-linea has demonstrated exciting results in expediting phenotypic testing directly from whole blood. We are eager to provide clinicians with the ability to ‘see the bugs’ and to guide effective and timely patient treatment in as little as 4 hours, compared to 24-48+ hours with today’s available options.”

“These results demonstrate the capability to deliver urgent AST testing on the same shift a sample is taken, with life-saving implications for sepsis patients”, said Q-linea CEO, Stuart Gander. He adds, “The combination of Q-linea’s FDA-cleared rapid AST technology with BLASTID’s sample preparation technology avoids the need for lengthy blood sample culturing, reducing testing time and associated hospital lab costs.”

BLASTID™ & Q-linea Poster A-276 will be presented at ADLM2025 in Chicago on Tuesday, July 29th 2025 at 1:30 PM CST. ePoster is available on the ADLM2025 Mobile App.

This research was, in part, funded by the United States Government, ARPA-H. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the United States Government.

About BLASTID

BLASTID^™ Inc., is a Boston-based Harvard spinout pioneering diagnostic platforms to provide life-saving phenotypic insights to doctors treating patients with bloodstream infections and sepsis. Our ultra-rapid SPLENDID^™ platform is a direct from whole-blood technology that is capable of pathogen isolation and enrichment, single-cell characterization, and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST). Our work is funded through the ARPA-H DARTS program and integrates advanced microfluidics, novel optics, and predictive AI/ML algorithms for fast Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Diagnostics. Ultimately, we will empower doctors with clinically-actionable information to guide effective and timely treatment during the first critical hours of sepsis patient care. For more information, please visit https://www.blastid.life/.

About Q-linea

Q-linea’s rapid AST system, ASTar®, accelerates and simplifies the time-sensitive workflows faced during the treatment of patients with bloodstream infections and sepsis. Hospitals use ASTar to vastly reduce the time to optimal antimicrobial therapies and ensure that patients receive the correct treatments sooner — when time matters most. We are helping to create sustainable healthcare, now and in the future, and safeguard the effectiveness of antibiotics for generations to come.

Q-linea is headquartered in Uppsala, Sweden and has regional offices in Italy and the USA, with partnerships worldwide.

ASTar Instrument and ASTar BC G- Consumable kit are CE-IVD marked and FDA 510(k) cleared. For more information, please visit www.qlinea.com.