The global frequency of neonatal sepsis is 1-21 newborns per 1000 live births with mortality rates as high as 35-70%, amounting to 100,000s of annual cases. The consortium has identified a real and pressing need for increasing diagnostic efficacy in a setting that imposes a dramatic healthcare burden on EU (and global) healthcare management systems. The goal of this project is the realization and clinical validation of a fully integrated and automated platform for the parallel detection of neonatal sepsis markers and a panel of sepsis-causing bacteria from a clinical sample (whole blood, cerebrospinal fluid, fluid from joint aspirations or urine). For the first time, this will allow a fast (90 minutes) automated routine diagnosis of neonatal sepsis, permitting a timely and especially specific treatment.The project has the potential to significantly reduce neonatal mortality and ensure appropriate treatment for one of the most vulnerable patient cohorts in the medical setting: newborns. The interaction between presence of microbial pathogens and the host (patient) response will be investigated in a clinical validation phase with a view to planning patient management more appropriately. In the long term this will also reduce the spread of multiresistant strains emerging from the unspecific use of broad-spectrum antibiotics.ASCMicroPlat will cover the complete value chain from research and development to clinical validation. The system will be based on the centrifugal microfluidic platform of HSG-IMIT and an inventive foil-technology for the disposable test carriers, which is scalable to industrial production. ASCMicroPlat will enable a sepsis diagnosis based on a “sample in – result out” process. Additionally, the know-how generated in this project will provide innovative European SMEs with a platform for the fast implementation of lab-on-a-chip tests. The consortium has a strong industrial component including 2 SMEs.