ASM Health

Integrated Multi-Omics Powered Ecosystem

Redefining Diagnosis, Triage and Surveillance of Infectious Diseases

Executive Summary:

Infectious disease management is at a turning point. Traditional, pathogen-specific diagnostics, which are built on phenotypic characteristics identified through culture or syndromic panels with nucleic acid detection, are effective, but have limitations in detection of emerging and unknown pathogens or incorporation of changes in host-factors to detect infection. A pathogen agnostic, multi-omics system could directly address these gaps by enabling comprehensive, rapid and unbiased detection of pathogens and host responses.

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ASM Health envisions a multi-omics ecosystem that brings together:

Unbiased matrix- and pathogen-agnostic detection utilizing rapid sequencing, metabolomics and other advanced technologies.
Host transcriptomics and biomarker discovery to guide triage and prognosis based on characterization of host factors, including immune response at the time of infection.
Wastewater and environmental sequencing to inform community-level early warning for emerging pathogens, respiratory season and gastrointestinal outbreaks in addition to passive real-time monitoring.
AI-driven multi-omics integration to transform complex data into clinically relevant, actionable diagnostic and prognostic outputs.

This framework redefines the role of omics, positioning it as a pivotal tool for infectious disease management, both at individual patient level and across public health systems, through 3 pillars:

Surveillance: detect novel pathogens early, monitor community spread and transmission dynamics and track antimicrobial resistance.
Diagnostics: identify pathogens rapidly, using broad-range, first-line tests, which would inform treatment.
Prognostics: use host-response and genomic pathogen profiling (including resistance mechanisms) to predict disease severity and guide clinical decisions.

These approaches leverage advanced technologies; can redefine health security; and equip clinicians, public health agencies and policymakers with the tools to anticipate, respond and prevent outbreaks with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

The Challenge: Blind Spots in Today's System

Diagnostic Challenges

Consider an ICU patient with an unknown etiology: today no single test can simultaneously detect all potential pathogens and assess the host's immune response in real time.

Pandemic Preparedness

What happens when the next pandemic emerges? We need a rapid-response ecosystem—an integrated system capable of diagnosing the unknown, containing spread and guiding care before a pathogen even has a name.

Surveillance is fragmented. Global systems and approaches to monitor emerging infectious diseases remain inconsistent and disconnected across human, animal and environmental health.
Targeted tests miss the unknown. PCR and panels detect only predefined organisms, failing at the outset of a potential outbreak of an emerging pathogen.
Siloed workflows delay care. Bacterial, viral, fungal and immune tests are run separately and often sequentially, potentially slowing decision-making.
No clear path from prognosis to treatment. Without host-response insights, broad antibiotics are often overprescribed and personalized therapies are unattainable.
Scaling gaps remain. Costs, bioinformatics bottlenecks and lack of standardized pipelines hinder optimal use of omics-based approaches to infectious disease management.

ASM Health’s Multi-Omics-Powered Framework

Surveillance

Wastewater as early signal: wastewater metagenomics often detect novel pathogens or resistance genes before clinical cases emerge, providing a critical population-level lens.
AI-powered analytics: AI pipelines can process billions of reads daily, rapidly flagging anomalies, resistance markers or novel variants for action, and will be validated with real life data.
Open and federated data: as with weather data, raw pathogen signals should be released quickly, following FAIR/GA4GH standards, to enable transparency and global collaboration, thus creating a pathogen radar detection system infrastructure.

Diagnostics

Pathogen-agnostic diagnostics: hypothesis-free detection of all pathogens (viral, bacterial, fungal, parasitic or novel) in a single assay.
Infection specificity: incorporate host response to understand presence or absence of infection versus colonization of organisms to drive treatment decisions.
AI-enabled Interpretation: near-real-time pipelines automate presence or absence of infection patterns to discern colonizing organisms from pathogens, allowing for refinement in performance.
Field-ready platforms: portable sequencing devices allow rapid deployment for outbreaks, LMICs and immediate pandemic response with centralized analysis platforms using shared cloud software systems.

Prognostics

Pathogen characterization: resistance mechanisms identified simultaneously with pathogen detection to assist in selecting definitive therapy.
Host omics: RNA and metabolomic signatures reliably distinguish infection types and predict severity.
Immune-state biomarkers: cytokine modules, regulatory pathways and immune polymorphisms predict disease trajectory.
Real-time triage tools: prognostics inform escalation decisions (ICU transfer, advanced monitoring, follow up frequency) and help predict disease severity before it becomes clinically apparent.

Why Now?

Falling costs: sequencing costs are at historic lows, making widescale adoption feasible.
Regulatory readiness: improved technologies and increased familiarity with next-generation sequencing from human cancer studies, as well as multi-target panels, have paved the way for innovative approaches to broad diagnostics.
AI maturity: capable of handling terabyte-scale daily inputs and prioritizing anomalies.
Wastewater proof points: demonstrated success in COVID-19, polio, and influenza.
Standardization momentum: FAIR/GA4GH frameworks gaining traction globally.
Neutral convening power: ASM Health is positioned to unify fragmented efforts into a coordinated global framework.

Impact

Domain	Impact
Clinical Care	Faster diagnosis, reduced uncertainty and immune-guided therapy.
Public Health	Immediate deployment, outbreak containment, AMR and novel pathogen detection and monitoring.
Critical Care and Stewardship	Data-driven therapy for sepsis and febrile illness; reduced resistance pressure.
Global Equity and One Health	Accessible platforms for LMICs; integrated human-animal-environmental surveillance.

Strategic Role for ASM Health

ASM Health will accelerate adoption through:

A global Omics-powered infectious disease consortium to unify partners across regions and preserve proprietary discovery while supporting the validation and scaling in healthcare settings.
A shared innovation sandbox for pilots, data sharing, and algorithm validation.
A global playbook series on regulation, validation, clinical utilization, reimbursement and ethics.
A sequencing workforce academy to train and connect with global practitioners.
An annual global summit to align funders, policymakers, and frontline implementers so that everyone benefits.

How We Will Execute

Set Priorities & Roadmaps: define gaps across surveillance, diagnostics and prognostics. Maintain roadmaps tied to pilots and validation studies.
Regulatory and Reimbursement Alignment: turn pilot evidence into a Global Playbook Series and engage federal agencies and payers through roundtables and pre-submission dialogues to speed adoption.
Funding & Partnerships: scout funding opportunities and support multi-site proposals through a centralized matchmaking and coordination hub.
Knowledge Dissemination: translate pilot results into white papers, playbooks and best practices to guide adoption and policy.
Advance Data and Standards: apply FAIR/GA4GH principles, enable federated data sharing and run a shared sandbox for algorithm validation and reproducibility.
Convene and Build Consensus: host expert roundtables and symposia to align on validation criteria, quality standards and responsible use.
Workforce Development: through the Sequencing Workforce Academy, deliver training and site activation kits to accelerate implementation.
Engage Industry: offer curated matchmaking and tiered partnerships with various benefits, while preserving ASM’s neutral stance.
Measure Impact: track funding wins, validation milestones, workforce readiness, publications and regulatory acceptance to drive continuous improvement.

Call to Action

This is more than a diagnostic upgrade—it is the foundation of next-generation health security. ASM Health invites partners to:

Join the Global Initiative for Multi Omics-Powered Infectious Disease Ecosystem.
Pilot unified platforms in clinical and public health systems.
Co-develop workforce and cloud-based AI solutions.
Align reimbursement and regulatory pathways for rapid adoption.

Interested in Joining Us?

Be among the first to shape ASM-H initiatives—if you’re driving cutting-edge research or product innovation in the area of multi-omics, reach out to us for early access.