APPLICATIONS · DISEASE AREA · INFECTIOUS DISEASE

The pathogen is one variable. The host response is the one that moves

Two people carrying the same organism can differ by orders of magnitude in their cytokine and inflammatory response, and that difference is usually what the study is about. Much of the signalling that separates them sits below the sensitivity of conventional immunoassays.

We measure it on validated multiplex endpoints, femtogram-level single-molecule assays, discovery-scale immune profiling and RNA sequencing, in one laboratory, with data in two weeks.

Talk to a scientist

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APPLICATIONS · DISEASE AREA · INFECTIOUS DISEASE

The pathogen is one variable. The host response is the one that moves

Two people carrying the same organism can differ by orders of magnitude in their cytokine and inflammatory response, and that difference is usually what the study is about. Much of the signalling that separates them sits below the sensitivity of conventional immunoassays.

We measure it on validated multiplex endpoints, femtogram-level single-molecule assays, discovery-scale immune profiling and RNA sequencing, in one laboratory, with data in two weeks.

Talk to a scientist

Request a quote

APPLICATIONS · DISEASE AREA · INFECTIOUS DISEASE

The pathogen is one variable. The host response is the one that moves

Two people carrying the same organism can differ by orders of magnitude in their cytokine and inflammatory response, and that difference is usually what the study is about. Much of the signalling that separates them sits below the sensitivity of conventional immunoassays.

We measure it on validated multiplex endpoints, femtogram-level single-molecule assays, discovery-scale immune profiling and RNA sequencing, in one laboratory, with data in two weeks.

Talk to a scientist

Request a quote

Femtogram-level sensitivity

for cytokines conventional immunoassays miss

Up to 340 immune proteins in a single run

Data in two weeks

HTA licence 12818, GCP compliant

Femtogram-level sensitivity

for cytokines conventional immunoassays miss

Femtogram-level sensitivity

for cytokines conventional immunoassays miss

Up to 340 immune proteins in a single run

Up to 340 immune proteins in a single run

Data in two weeks

Data in two weeks

HTA licensed, GCP compliant

HTA licensed, GCP compliant

WHY IT MATTERS

Severity is a host phenotype

Infection research asks two different questions: what is the organism doing, and what is the person doing about it? The second is where most therapeutic and stratification programmes now sit, because it predicts who deteriorates, who recovers slowly and who is still inflamed months later.

Measuring it is difficult for three reasons, and they compound each other.

The response is distributed.

The response is fast.

The response spans several orders of magnitude of concentration.

The response is distributed.

The response is fast.

The response spans several orders of magnitude of concentration.

There is a fourth problem – and it quietly weakens many published infection datasets.

An immune signature is only as interpretable as the infection status of the samples behind it. A cohort assembled on symptoms alone will include samples where the assumed infection was not the one present, and that noise ends up in the signature, not the metadata. How we design around it is set out below.

what we measure

What we measure for infection programmes

Discovery-scale immune profiling

Validated multiplex endpoints

Ultra-sensitive focused measurement

Serology

Transcriptomic host response

Targets outside the catalogue

Talk to a scientist

Where we fit

One infection study can need three kinds of measurement: a broad protein view to find the signature, a validated endpoint to report it, and a transcriptomic layer to explain it. We run all three here.

That matters most for the sample-status problem above. Where your protocol establishes infection status – at your site or through your own confirmatory testing – the host-response measurements run on the same aliquot set, in one laboratory, under one chain of custody. The immune signature is anchored to samples of known status, and the variation left to explain at analysis is biological.

Need pathogen-associated measurement alongside host response? Raise it at scoping and we will set out exactly what we can support for research use.

All work described on this page is for research use only. It is not for use in diagnostic procedures, and no result we report is intended to establish infection status in a patient.

Talk to a scientist about your programme

Where we fit

One infection study can need three kinds of measurement: a broad protein view to find the signature, a validated endpoint to report it, and a transcriptomic layer to explain it. We run all three here.

That matters most for the sample-status problem above. Where your protocol establishes infection status – at your site or through your own confirmatory testing – the host-response measurements run on the same aliquot set, in one laboratory, under one chain of custody. The immune signature is anchored to samples of known status, and the variation left to explain at analysis is biological.

Need pathogen-associated measurement alongside host response? Raise it at scoping and we will set out exactly what we can support for research use.

All work described on this page is for research use only. It is not for use in diagnostic procedures, and no result we report is intended to establish infection status in a patient.

Talk to a scientist about your programme

Where we fit

One infection study can need three kinds of measurement: a broad protein view to find the signature, a validated endpoint to report it, and a transcriptomic layer to explain it. We run all three here.

That matters most for the sample-status problem above. Where your protocol establishes infection status – at your site or through your own confirmatory testing – the host-response measurements run on the same aliquot set, in one laboratory, under one chain of custody. The immune signature is anchored to samples of known status, and the variation left to explain at analysis is biological.

Need pathogen-associated measurement alongside host response? Raise it at scoping and we will set out exactly what we can support for research use.

All work described on this page is for research use only. It is not for use in diagnostic procedures, and no result we report is intended to establish infection status in a patient.

Talk to a scientist

Typical applications

Infection severity and stratification

Post-infection and persistent inflammation

Therapeutic development

Mucosal and site-of-infection measurement

  • Infection-severity research

  • Host-response profiling across a time course

  • Response heterogeneity within an infected cohort

Infection severity and stratification

Post-infection and persistent inflammation

Therapeutic development

Mucosal and site-of-infection measurement

  • Infection-severity research

  • Host-response profiling across a time course

  • Response heterogeneity within an infected cohort

Send us your marker list

Tell us the cytokines, chemokines or immune markers that matter, your matrix, your timepoints and your cohort size. We will tell you which platform covers your targets, where the sensitivity sits for each of them, whether the matrix you are working in will clear the limit of detection, and whether you need one platform or two. That reply comes within one working day.

Send us your marker list

SITE-OF-INFECTION SAMPLING

Measuring where the infection is

For respiratory and mucosal infection, circulating cytokine concentrations describe the systemic consequence of something happening somewhere else. The informative sample is often taken at the site.

We work in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, sputum, nasal lining fluid, exhaled breath condensate and interstitial fluid. These matrices are dilute and variable, so we scope them marker by marker – before anything is committed, you will know which of your targets we expect to detect in the matrix you are using.

We work in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid fluid, sputum, nasal lining fluid, exhaled breath condensate and interstitial fluid. These matrices are dilute and variable, so we scope them marker by marker – before anything is committed, you will know which of your targets we expect to detect in the matrix you are using.

On the NULISAseq Inflammation Panel 250, nasal swabs detect 175–200 of the 250 targets (70–80%), and sputum detects 150 or more (60% or more). We expect absorptive strip collection of nasal lining fluid to perform comparably to swabs.


For bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, we confirm feasibility with a single-plate pilot before a cohort is committed.

On the NULISAseq Inflammation Panel 250, nasal swabs detect 175–200 of the 250 targets (70–80%), and sputum detects 150 or more (60% or more). We expect absorptive strip collection of nasal lining fluid to perform comparably to swabs.


For bronchoalveolar lavage fluid fluid, we confirm feasibility with a single-plate pilot before a cohort is committed.

Paired designs – one systemic and one mucosal sample per timepoint – run in the same laboratory, on the same schedule.

Talk to us about mucosal sampling

The practical detail

Turnaround

Two weeks from sample receipt, confirmed in writing at quote

Quote

Within one working day of receiving your marker list

Up to 1,000-fold greater than conventional ELISA.

Femtogram-per-millilitre for many targets.

SR-X performance figures confirmed per assay at scoping

Sample confirmation

Receipt and condition confirmed within two working days, before anything is consumed

Receipt and condition confirmed within two working days, before anything is consumed

Sample volume

NULISAseq needs 25 µL of sample and NULISAqpcr needs 35 µL. Ship about 10 µL more than the assay requires, so 35 µL for NULISAseq and 45 µL for NULISAqpcr, which covers dead volume and leaves enough for a repeat. MSD and Simoa requirements are assay-dependent

NULISAseq needs 25 µL of sample and NULISAqpcr needs 35 µL. Ship about 10 µL more than the assay requires, so 35 µL for NULISAseq and 45 µL for NULISAqpcr, which covers dead volume and leaves enough for a repeat. MSD and Simoa requirements are assay-dependent

Matrices

Plasma, serum, CSF, urine, cell-culture supernatant and tissue lysate. Specialist matrices including BAL, sputum, nasal lining fluid, EBC and interstitial fluid scoped for feasibility

Plasma, serum, CSF, urine, cell-culture supernatant and tissue lysate. Specialist matrices including BAL, sputum, nasal lining fluid, EBC and interstitial fluid scoped for feasibility

Cohort size

Dozens to tens of thousands of samples

Dozens to tens of thousands of samples

Data output

Relative quantification in NPQ units for NULISAseq panels. Absolute concentrations in pg/mL for MSD, Simoa and the 250 AQ panel

Relative quantification in NPQ units for NULISAseq panels. Absolute concentrations in pg/mL for MSD, Simoa and the 250 AQ panel

Deliverables

Normalised concentrations, QC metrics and run documentation as standard. Statistical analysis is not included as standard. Bioinformatic analysis is available and scoped separately

Normalised concentrations, QC metrics and run documentation as standard. Statistical analysis is not included as standard. Bioinformatic analysis is available and scoped separately

Quality framework

HTA licence 12818. GCP-compliant workflows. Aligned to ISO 15189, with accreditation in progress

HTA licence 12818. GCP-compliant workflows. Aligned to ISO 15189, with accreditation in progress

Regulatory status

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures

Regulatory status

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures

The full host response, from one sample set

The NULISAseq Immune 340 Panel measures up to 340 immune proteins from a single small-volume sample, capturing the distributed, fast-moving response that separates severe from mild. Where a marker needs absolute quantification or a validated endpoint, Simoa and MSD run alongside it.


RNA sequencing on our own Element AVITI adds the transcriptomic layer on the same samples, under the same chain of custody. For targets with no commercial assay, we hold one of five worldwide Alamar certifications for NULISA custom assay development.

We run Simoa on the SR-X alongside NULISA, MSD and sequencing.

All of them are ours, so the recommendation you get is a scientific one. If your target is better served by NULISA or MSD we will say so, and the work stays with us either way.



Homebrew development means we are not limited to the catalogue.


Where no commercial Simoa assay exists for your target, we can build one.

THE ALTHEOME DIFFERENCE

Why infection programmes work with us

Protein and transcriptomic readouts on the same samples

Sensitivity where the early signal lives

Specialist matrices

Time course designs handled as designs

Speed as a design principle

Senior scientific oversight

Analysis by the people who ran the assay

Quality framework

NULISA, Simoa, MSD and Element AVITI sequencing run in one laboratory, so a host-response signature can be followed from broad protein profiling through validated endpoint measurement into transcriptomics without changing supplier.

Talk to a scientist

THE ALTHEOME DIFFERENCE

Why infection programmes work with us

Protein and transcriptomic readouts on the same samples

Sensitivity where the early signal lives

Specialist matrices

Time course designs handled as designs

Speed as a design principle

Senior scientific oversight

Analysis by the people who ran the assay

Quality framework

NULISA, Simoa, MSD and Element AVITI sequencing run in one laboratory, so a host-response signature can be followed from broad protein profiling through validated endpoint measurement into transcriptomics without changing supplier.

Talk to a scientist

THE ALTHEOME DIFFERENCE

Why infection programmes work with us

Protein and transcriptomic readouts on the same samples

Sensitivity where the early signal lives

Specialist matrices

Time course designs handled as designs

Speed as a design principle

Senior scientific oversight

Analysis by the people who ran the assay

Quality framework

NULISA, Simoa, MSD and Element AVITI sequencing run in one laboratory, so a host-response signature can be followed from broad protein profiling through validated endpoint measurement into transcriptomics without changing supplier.

Talk to a scientist

Tell us about your study

Send us your markers, your matrix, your timepoints and your cohort size. A senior scientist will tell you which platform fits, including when the answer is fewer platforms than you expected.

Talk to a scientist

Request a quote

You will hear from us within one working day.

You will hear from us within one working day.

Related plataforms
Related capabilities
Related matrices
Related research areas
Related disease areas

Still curious? Find answers in our FAQ's.

FAQ page

Related plataforms
Related capabilities
Related matrices
Related research areas
Related disease areas

Still curious? Find answers in our FAQ's.

FAQ page