New detection methods could shorten the detection of sepsis from days down to only a few hours.
Sepsis is a possibly mortal bacterial infection. It affects neonates and young infants more severely since their immune system is not fully developed. Now scientists are developing a fully automated system, which can identify sepsis in infants within hours instead of days. Such performance in terms of sped is what the EU funded research projectASCMicroPlat hopes to deliver by the time its final tests have been conducted, in 2014. Gregor Czilwik, engineer of micro system technology and project manager at research institute HSG-IMIT in Villingen, Germany, talks to youris.com about how this invention could both save lives and prevent the unnecessary use of antibiotics.
What does the technology developed during the project consist of?
It is a laboratory on a disc. Within the disc are very fine micro channels running outwards in a kind of star shape. By spinning the disc, we make centrifugal forces push a liquid—in this case a blood serum sample—through the micro channels. Liquids behave totally different in this micro world than in the real world. This is how we can identify what is in the liquid.
How are each of the blood serum samples analysed in the channels?
We have in- built biochemical reactions which produce a kind of fluorescence light. By analysing this light we can tell what pathogen or bacteria are in the blood sample. It is up to twenty times faster than the present day methods, which need a blood sample to be cultured and only then analysed; the whole process can take up to five days.
What are the biggest challenges associated with your work?
The subject itself is very complicated because there is a very low concentration of pathogens in each sample. So we need an extremely sensitive method to detect them. And, of course, we want a fully automated device. All the reagents in the disc must remain stable for a long time. And a laboratory technician should only need to apply a sample to the disc and push a button.