Centralized laboratory testing creates critical delays in infectious disease management, resulting in patient attrition and untreated infections. To address this, Visby Medical engineered true PCR into a single-use, instrument-free platform. This presentation outlines our commercial shift toward decentralized consumer care, detailing the first FDA-authorized at-home PCR for sexual health and our integrated “test-to-treat” telehealth ecosystem. We also highlight consumer adoption metrics and our pipeline targeting respiratory pathogens and antimicrobial resistance.

The Transformation of Rural Health and the Role of Diagnostics Rural healthcare systems face unique challenges—from limited specialist access to higher disease burdens. With new federal momentum through the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, the landscape is shifting. This session explores how advances in AI-enabled lab management, point-of-care testing, and clinical decision support are reshaping diagnostics in underserved communities—improving early detection, informing clinical decisions, and driving more equitable outcomes across rural America.

This session will explore how self-collected specimens are transforming sexual health testing and screening for cervical cancer. The talk reviews laboratory validation and regulatory requirements, workflow considerations, and performance of self-collection for HPV and other STIs. It highlights evidence supporting accuracy, patient acceptability, and expanded access, while discussing operational challenges and quality assurance as collection shifts from clinic-based toward scalable, reliable home-based screening models.

In Greek myth, Prometheus gave us fire, transforming our capabilities---for good and for ill. In infectious‑disease diagnostics, AI can transform both testing/interpretation and laboratory management for sepsis/AST, respiratory infections, STIs, malaria, MTB, and more. New language and vision models, together with new ways to leverage them, arrive as stakeholders are re‑imagining multiple aspects of healthcare to expedite delivery and broaden access. This keynote will survey the emerging AI landscape for infectious‑disease diagnostics and AI’s promise and challenges.

CRISPR-based diagnostics are maturing rapidly and have the potential to transform disease diagnosis, particularly for infectious diseases. However, key barriers continue to impede clinical translation. Here, we introduce original mechanisms, including asymmetrical CRISPR, temperature-programmed CRISPR, and chemically proximate-induced CRISPR, that address major challenges in integration, scalability, and the detection of non-nucleic-acid targets. Together, these advances enable a versatile CRISPR platform for applications ranging from emergency responses to established and emerging infections. to therapeutic drug-monitoring, plant hormone detection, and the evaluation of microbial metabolic activity.

What principles can guide the application of AI to the challenges faced by clinical microbiology laboratory leaders? These technologies present transformative opportunities, yet implementation in next-generation sequencing (NGS) post-analysis poses significant challenges. This session examines the pitfalls and promises of AI-driven bioinformatics, addressing current capabilities, laboratory needs, and regulatory considerations while highlighting how AI can support in-house solutions and enhance workflows for infectious disease diagnostics.

In this presentation, the speaker will examine how emerging artificial intelligence technologies are redefining sepsis identification, refining risk stratification, and supporting clinical decision-making across acute and critical care settings. The session will focus on real-world applications of machine learning and large language models, emphasizing how these tools can complement clinician expertise, promote earlier intervention, and advance quality improvement efforts in high-acuity environments.

This session will introduce practical applications of AI-assisted script development in the clinical laboratory, including data parsing, workflow automation, and NGS pipeline construction. Real-world use cases will highlight how laboratorians can leverage large language models to rapidly prototype, validate, and deploy scripts. Emphasis is placed on empowering users without any prior coding experience to develop operational tools that improve efficiency and support innovation in high-complexity microbiology laboratories.

This presentation will outline the clinical urgency driving the need for rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), emphasizing its role in improving patient outcomes and antimicrobial stewardship. It will examine key challenges in current practice and provide an overview of the evolving rapid AST landscape, including genotypic and phenotypic approaches. Finally, it will highlight emerging technologies and the critical trade-offs between speed, accuracy, and clinical utility in real-world infectious disease management. 

• Identify clinical scenarios where rapid AST provides the greatest impact.
• Evaluate trade-offs between speed, accuracy, and clinical utility across genotypic and phenotypic approaches.
• Assess key barriers to clinical adoption.​

This session examines the evolving role of next-generation sequencing (NGS) in accelerating antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). We will discuss the transition from isolate-based sequencing to direct-from-specimen molecular approaches that aim to bypass traditional culture timelines. The presentation will explore the current state of genotypic resistance prediction, the integration of rapid sequencing workflows into the clinical lab, and the ongoing challenges of aligning molecular findings with phenotypic gold standards to improve patient management.