Market Assessment application: market assessment of a rapid, reagent-free technology for identification of antibiotic-resistant bacteria by ATR-FTIR spectroscvopy

这项NSERC-I2I市场评估应用程序的目的是调查MIR Direct的市场潜力，MIR Direct是麦吉尔大学为医院临床微生物学实验室进行细菌鉴定而开发的一项新的快速技术。MIR Direct采用衰减全反射傅里叶变换红外(ATR-FTIR)光谱的全生物指纹技术来鉴定细菌种类。此外，这项技术具有区分同一细菌种类的抗生素耐药菌株和抗生素敏感菌株的能力，这对于及时诊断由抗生素耐药细菌引起的感染，如甲氧西林耐药金黄色葡萄球菌(MRSA)和万古霉素耐药肠球菌(VRE)，以及适当使用抗生素至关重要。MIR Direct技术的优点包括：(I)最少的样品制备，(Ii)无试剂分析，(Iii)简单(一步)，普遍适用的分析方案，(Iv)快速周转时间(1-2分钟)，以及(V)每次测试成本低。因此，将进行一项市场评估研究，以指导麦吉尔技术转移办公室确定这项前景光明的新细菌识别技术的商业化战略。

The objective of this NSERC-I2I market assessment application is to investigate the market potential of MIR Direct, a new and rapid technology developed at McGill University for bacteria identification in hospital clinical microbiology laboratories. MIR Direct employs "whole-organism fingerprinting" by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to identify bacterial species. Furthermore, this technology has the capability to discriminate between antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-susceptible strains of the same bacterial species, which is critically important for the timely diagnosis of infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), and the appropriate use of antibiotics. Advantages of the MIR Direct technology include: (i) minimal sample preparation, (ii) reagent-free analysis, (iii) simple (one-step), universally applicable analysis protocol, (iv) fast turnaround time (1-2 min),and (v) low cost per test. Accordingly, a market assessment study will be undertaken to guide the McGill technology transfer office in determining the commercialization strategy for this promising new bacteria identification technology.