In research that solves the longest-standing mystery in glycobiology – a field that studies complex sugar chains called glycans – researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered that a molecule in the liver of all animals, called the Ashwell receptor, is critical in helping the body fight off the abnormal and lethal blood clotting caused by bacterial infection.

The Wellcome Trust will invest £4 million over three years from its Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative into a programme to develop UCL’s patented series of selective DDAH inhibitors for use in treating sepsis.

Using a blood test and a decision algorithm, rather than standard hospital protocols, to determine the appropriate length of antibiotic therapy in patients with severe sepsis or septic shock can reduce duration of treatments, shorten ICU stays, and lower hospital costs— all without adverse effects on patients, according to new research.

“We have identified a key connection of signaling pathways in the cascade of events leading to sepsis. This defines a crucial point where the immune system spirals out of control to cause severe sepsis and where there is an opportunity for therapeutic intervention,” says Scripps Research Professor Wolfram Ruf, who led the research with his postdoctoral fellow Frank Niessen.

Blacks have almost double the rate of severe sepsis—an overwhelming infection of the bloodstream accompanied by acute organ dysfunction—as whites, according to recent research.

A major component of green tea could prove the perfect elixir for severe sepsis, an abnormal immune system response to a bacterial infection. In a new laboratory study, Haichao Wang, PhD, of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, and his colleagues have been studying the therapeutic powers of dozens of Chinese herbal compounds in reversing a fatal immune response that kills 225,000 Americans every year.

While survival rates for sepsis have increased over the past two decades, children under four and those in adolescence remain highly susceptible to the condition. Researchers in The Netherlands have now demonstrated that age and to a lesser extent, gender, are critical factors in whether or not a child sufferer will develop a more severe disease state and survive or not.

Not all patients with sepsis mount the same immune response, even when they look the same clinically, according to findings from the first large-scale natural history study of sepsis.

More than 215,000 people will die of sepsis in the United States each year, more than 750,000 will require hospital treatment, and the costs will be nearly $17 billion. Severe sepsis is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in adults, yet there has been little progress in recent decades in treating sepsis and septic shock, and the mortality rate remains disturbingly high.