New strategies to isolate bacteria for early diagnosis of sepsis

细菌对抗生素的耐药性或敏感性的测量是患者护理的关键部分，考虑到抗生素耐药性的上升，更是如此。在过去的100年里，目前的技术几乎没有变化，涉及在有/无抗生素的情况下在培养皿上培养细菌。该方法需要大量的活微生物，可能需要超过48小时。如果细菌不能生长，那么它们对这种药物很敏感。我们最近开发了一种测定细胞抗菌药物敏感性的新方法。我们的新测试称为iFAST，涉及测量暴露于抗生素后数千种细菌的电表型。它将测试的时间窗口缩短到2小时。我们目前正在评估患者样本的诊断测试。

Measurement of the resistance or susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics is a critical part of patient care, even more so given the rise in antibiotic resistance. Current techniques have changed little over the last 100 years and involve growing bacteria on a petri dish in the presence/absence of an antibiotic. The method requires a large number of viable organisms and can take over 48hours. If the bacteria fails to grow then they are susceptible to that drug. We have recently developed a new method of determining the antimicrobial susceptibility of cells. Our new test, called iFAST involves measuring the electrical phenotype of a few thousand bacteria after exposure to antibiotics. It reduces the time window for the test to as little as 2 hours. We are currently evaluating the diagnostic test with patient samples.