Day Zero Diagnostics, the four-year-old startup incubated at Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab, was awarded $6.2 million in non-dilutive funding from Boston-based Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X).
The Harvard-born startup is developing a sequencing-based and machine learning-powered diagnostic system that identifies, within hours, both the species and the antibiotic resistance profile of a bacterial pathogen. The system is designed to allow for the simultaneous testing of a broad range of bacterial species and their antibiotic susceptibility.
“There has never been a more dramatic demonstration of the importance of rapid and accurate diagnostics to combat infectious disease threats than the current COVID-19 pandemic,” Day Zero Diagnostics CEO Jong Lee said in a statement. “Antibiotic-resistant infections can be extremely lethal, spread easily and persistently in healthcare institutions, and they continue to grow as a global threat.”
Funding from CARB-X will help in the development of three projects: Blood2Bac, a proprietary sample preparation technology for ultra-high enrichment of bacterial DNA from clinical blood samples; Keynome, the startup’s machine learning algorithm for species identification and resistance profiling; and MicrohmDB, a proprietary large-scale database combining pathogen genomic sequences with their known antibiotic resistance and susceptibility profiles.
In addition to the initial $6.2 million award, the company will be eligible for an additional $18.7 million from CARB-X if the project meets certain development milestones, for a total award of up to $24.9 million in cash plus access to expertise and business consulting resources.
Day Zero Diagnostics isn't the only startup in the race to fight superbug infections. In April, Charlestown-based biotech startup Selux Diagnostics received $9.6 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to advance the development of its next generation “Phenotyping” (NGP) technology, a rapid and precise antimicrobial susceptibility test (AST), through clinical trials.
Selux also develops a diagnostics platform that enables delivery of personalized therapies to treat superbug infections and combat antibiotic resistance.
