A Portable Electronic Platform with Microfluidic Biosensors for Rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing at the Point-of-Care
Problem Statement:
Emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance is a global healthcare concern. Incorrect prescription of antibiotics and the indiscriminate use of broad-spectrum antibiotics is a major cause of antibiotic resistance related mortality around the world. Conventional techniques used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of a drug against the bacteria are time consuming (24-48h) and prone to false negative results. This results in the prescription of broad-spectrum antibiotics by the clinicians which further induces antibiotic resistance in the individual and the community, thereby aggravating the problem with a positive feedback loop. There is a pressing need to develop a point-of-care antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) platform for identifying the efficacy of antibiotics.
Concept:
The screening tool consists of a cartridge containing microfluidic biosensor capable of performing antibiotic susceptibility testing with clinical isolates against multiple drug targets based on electrical impedance sensing modality. The cartridge can be detached from the platform and the clinical isolate from the patient such as blood, urine, saliva, tear drop, buccal swabs etc. can be loaded onto the cartridge using pipettes, washed using wash buffers, and inserted back to the platform for analysis. With on-board processing capabilities for performing impedance spectroscopic analysis, data capture, analysis, and visualization the tool can provide results of the test in under 120 minutes.
Technology/Science involved:
Bio-MEMS, Drug Screening, Point-of-Care Diagnostics, Microbiological Sensing