Queen’s University Belfast

Mass spectrometry

Preventing disease and disability in children is a major Medical priority for the Trust. In 2023 £30,000 was awarded to Queen’s University Belfast for the project “Mass spectrometry to identify novel biomarkers of invasive bacterial infections in young febrile infants”.

Infants under three months are at high risk of invasive bacterial infections including sepsis and meningitis. Unlike older children, infants regularly appear well or have non-specific features despite having meningitis or sepsis. History and physical examination alone are not sufficient to detect all cases. Young infants with a fever almost always undergo blood testing. Unfortunately, current blood tests used to detect meningitis and sepsis are unreliable. This results in many infants receiving unnecessary strong antibiotics and hospital stays, with others falsely reassured and discharged home.

The Trust is funding additional “biomarker” discovery testing on blood samples collected from a UK-wide study of febrile infants attending hospital, the FIDO study. Over 30 UK hospitals are taking part, with over 500 infants recruited.

Biomarkers being tested are naturally occurring proteins, produced by the body when an invasive bacterial infection occurs. The discovery of new biomarkers that can accurately diagnose early invasive bacterial infections would improve the time to effective treatments whilst reducing antibiotic exposure in uninfected infants. The Trust is supporting a post-doctoral research fellow to perform a detailed study of proteins in the blood (proteomics) using a technology known as mass-spectrometry.