NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Using a new bioinformatic tool they developed, Stanford University researchers traced the origin of some patients' bloodstream infections to their gut microbiome.

Bloodstream infections are common among hospital patients, but clinicians cannot always tell where these infections come from, making it difficult to prevent their development. The Stanford team developed a tool dubbed StrainSifter that compares pathogens isolated from the bloodstream to potential sources.