I-Corps: Antibiotic susceptibility test kits

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a tool that enables rapid bacterial detection and antibiotic susceptibility testing. There is a critical unmet need for faster, sensitive, and affordable diagnostic tools to detect bacterial sepsis and identify appropriate antibiotics. The ability to customize antibiotic treatment within hours is particularly critical when treating sepsis. Each year, sepsis impacts 1-3 million U.S. patients, leads to 270,000 deaths, and costs over $60 billion. Most sepsis associated deaths are preventable with rapid diagnosis and early, effective treatment. Current standard of care involves an average 3-day turnaround. Shortening the time to diagnosis and initiation of effective treatment has the potential to dramatically improve patient outcomes, reduce hospital costs, and promote antimicrobial stewardship. Competing technologies require pathogen identification and growing bacteria to a detectable density, both adding to the overall diagnostic timeline. Furthermore, competitors are instrument-based, making them financially inaccessible to many hospitals. The proposed technology does not require pre-test steps and relies on standard clinical lab equipment. In addition, sepsis mortality is higher in low-income areas, and the proposed technology may improve outcomes for all sepsis patients, including the most vulnerable.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a novel tool for bacterial growth detection and antibiotic susceptibility profiling. The proposed technology pairs probes that mimic bacterial cell surface building blocks with an amplifiable colorimetric assay to create a solution to detect bacterial sepsis and identify appropriate antibiotics. The proof-of-concept data suggest that the proposed assay may rapidly detect bacterial growth and distinguish growing from nongrowing bacteria, including antibiotic susceptibility profiling, in less than 4.5 hours. In addition, the data also show that detection is dose-, bacterial density-, and time-dependent, and compatible with common sepsis-causing bacteria regardless of their cell surface architecture. Further, the assay may be performed using equipment found in standard clinical labs. While the current focus is on developing a kit for rapid detection and drug susceptibility profiling of blood-borne pathogenic bacteria, the technology may be adapted to detect the growth of bacteria in a variety of settings such as food and biomedical manufacturing facilities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.