Success Story
deepull
Accelerating Sepsis Care with a Fully Automated, Rapid PCR System for Direct-From-Blood Pathogen Detection
Product
UllCORE
Customer:
deepull
Market/Application:
Molecular Diagnostics / Infectious Disease
deepull has partnered with LRE to turn a breakthrough diagnostic vision into a fully automated, culture-free system for rapid bloodstream infection and sepsis diagnosis.
The UllCORE platform delivers direct-from-blood pathogen detection and antimicrobial resistance insights in about one hour, addressing a critical clinical gap where traditional blood culture methods can take days and sometimes miss key pathogens.
From initial concept through prototype delivery, LRE worked in close collaboration with deepull to rapidly evolve the system into a fully integrated solution. The platform consolidates all critical processes into a compact, cohesive benchtop device tailored for hospital laboratories and critical care environments.
Combining high-performance automation with a space-efficient design, the final system embodies deepull’s mission to advance sepsis diagnostics through impactful, culture-free technology.
Major Challenges
- Miniaturizing and integrating multiple laboratory steps—extraction, amplification, and detection—into a single benchtop system
- System integrated high performance centrifuges for fully customized consumables within limited space
- Running complex instrument development in parallel to assay development
Our Solution
- Holistic system design integrating all submodules into an automated workflow
- Fully customized submodules developed to maximize performance while minimizing footprint and cost, covering mechanics, electronics, optics, and software
- Implementation of a robotics system including teaching and calibration
- Design and implementation of an automated scheduler enabling parallel execution of workflows in a single resource system
- Instrument architecture optimized for assembly, serviceability, and real-world clinical use, including comprehensive system logging
- Intuitive, clinician-focused user interface tailored to critical care and laboratory workflows
- Iterative adaptation of instrument and subsystems to accommodate evolving assay requirements
- FDA and ISO 13485-compliant development, from concept through industrialization
Proven Expertise
- Close collaboration with deepull to define and align product requirements from the outset
- Rapid delivery of functional subsystem modules within five months, enabling early validation
- Engineering and production n of the first fully integrated functional unit within one year
- High-density integration and automation of several lab functionalities like centrifugation and PCR in a compact system
- Iterative design refinement addressing clinical and technical needs in real time
- Early incorporation of supply chain planning and production readiness engineering
- Agile, phased development approach that reduces risk and accelerates time to clinical readiness