I-Corps: Rapid Susceptibility Assay for Antibiotic Resistance

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of an instrument-free colorimetric point-of-care diagnostic capable of detecting antibiotic resistance in patients with urinary tract infections (UTIs) at time of care. Currently, there are no diagnostic options that can provide doctors with resistance information at time of care. Traditional microbiology techniques take three days to deliver results, so doctors must prescribe antibiotic treatments empirically. By rapidly detecting antibiotic resistance, the correct class of antibiotic can be prescribed at time of care. In the short-term, this enables better patient care where the patient can receive the lowest generation and narrowest spectrum antibiotic that is appropriate, meaning fewer potential side effects. Further, for those patients who exhibit higher-order resistance, last-resort antibiotics can be employed to ensure that the infection is cleared during the first course of antibiotics.This I-Corps project is based on patented core technology that enables rapid detection of b-lactam resistant bacteria in urine samples without the need of sample processing or bacterial culturing steps that are currently required in the clinical workflow. This biochemical assay directly detects the enzyme responsible for resistance by using a unique amplification strategy. The amplification technology is based on an innovative enzyme-dependent amplification cascade that is paired to traditional molecular diagnostic probes to create an increase in signal, allowing for detection of low abundant biomarkers without the need of sophisticated instrumentation. Ultimately, a color change indicates the presence of bacteria resistant to b-lactam antibiotics. This technology reduces time-to-results to just 30 minutes, compared to 3 days with traditional microbiology analysis.