New Device to Detect Bacteria in Blood
Healthcare professionals can now pinpoint the cause of potentially deadly infections and can fight them with drugs using a new tiny device created by the engineers. Harmful bacteria in the blood can be rapidly detected using this new device.
The researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology led the study and the Rutgers coauthored the study.
At Rutgers University-New Brunswick, in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering, an assistant professor and co-author of the study, Ruo-Qian (Roger) Wang said, “Healthcare providers will be able to boost the chances of survival by prescribing the right drugs with the rapid identification of drug-resistant bacteria using the device.”
The major public health concern is the drug-resistant bacteria or superbugs. Each year, as a result of drug-resistant infections, at least 700,000 people die which includes 230,000 deaths from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, globally. According to a 2019 report, if no actions are taken in this regard, by 2050, these numbers could rise up to 10 million deaths a year.
The tiny new device is based on a new approach that allows it to rapidly isolate, concentrate and retrieve target bacteria from bodily fluids. Capturing about 86 percent of bacteria and particles, it efficiently filters them. There are different sized magnetic beads that are designed to trap, retrieve and concentrate Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria, in the nano-device. In the device, to isolate bacteria, the small spaces between the beads are used.
According to the study, the device is ideal for detecting the organisms that cause disease, in healthcare settings and laboratories, as it is easy to fabricate and operate it and it is an inexpensive and transparent device. To explore scaling up testing in the field, the research team is planning to add multiple devices onto a small chip and is working to perfect the device.
In this study, researchers contributed from many places, it includes the State University of New York, Binghamton; Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute in China; Carollo Engineers, Inc.; and the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
The ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces journal published the study.
Author: Sruthi S
