A research team from McGill University has developed a diagnostic system that can identify bacteria, but also determine the antibiotics likely to neutralize them, all in just 36 minutes. This is a major advancement in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance. Currently, performing a clinical test typically takes 48 to 72 hours, so the doctor does not have all the relevant information at hand when writing the prescription.
According to the research team, this innovation comes at a critical time, given the urgency of the crisis related to antimicrobial resistance, which stems from the growing ability of bacteria to resist antibiotics.
Illustrative image from Pixabay
"We are losing the race against antimicrobial resistance," says Sara Mahshid, associate professor in the Department of Biological Engineering and lead author of the article published in
Nature Nanotechnology. "This problem kills more than a million people per year, more than HIV/AIDS or malaria, and delayed treatment is often blamed. Rapid tests are not a luxury: they represent the missing link between diagnosis and survival."
The right antibiotic from the start The solution developed by the team, called QolorPhAST, is a compact and automated system equipped with nanosensors that change color very rapidly during the metabolism of live bacteria. Inspired by nanoarchitectures found in nature, Mahsa Jalali and Tamer AbdElFatah, then PhD students in the Mahshid laboratory, developed this technology by combining nanomaterials engineering, microfluidics, optical physics, and machine learning.
By combining rapid color change with image analysis based on machine learning, QolorPhAST can determine both the identity of the bacteria and their susceptibility to antibiotics, without the need for overnight cultures. During a blinded clinical trial conducted on 54 urine samples, the system showed high accuracy compared to reference methods and provided results in a fraction of the time usually required.
Inexpensive, portable, and easy to use, the device was designed for large-scale use, and it could particularly help guide the treatment of sexually transmitted infections and urinary tract infections. The team now hopes to be able to commercialize their product.
The QolorPhAST system was developed in Professor Sara Mahshid's laboratory, in collaboration with Dr. Cédric Yansuni and Dr. Dao Nguyen, from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.
The study The article "Ultra-rapid nanoplasmonic colorimetry in microfluidics for antimicrobial susceptibility testing directly from specimens" by Mahsa Jalali, Tamer AbdElFatah, Carolina del Real Mata, Imman Hosseini, Sripadh Guptha Yedire, Geoffrey McKay, Rachel Corsini, Roozbeh Siavash Moakhar, Cedric Yansouni, Dao Nguyen, and Sara Mahshid, was published in
Nature Nanotechnology.