(Press-News.org) U of T Breakthrough Allows Fast, Reliable Pathogen Identification
TORONTO, ON – Life-threatening bacterial infections cause tens of thousands of deaths every year in North America. Increasingly, many infections are resistant to first-line antibiotics. Unfortunately, current methods of culturing bacteria in the lab can take days to report the specific source of the infection, and even longer to pinpoint the right antibiotic that will clear the infection. There remains an urgent, unmet need for technologies that can allow bacterial infections to be rapidly and specifically diagnosed.
Researchers from the University of Toronto have created an electronic chip with record-breaking speed that can analyze samples for panels of infectious bacteria. The new technology can report the identity of the pathogen in a matter of minutes, and looks for many different bacteria and drug resistance markers in parallel, allowing rapid and specific identification of infectious agents. The advance was reported this month in the journal Nature Communications.
"Overuse of antibiotics is driving the continued emergence of drug-resistant bacteria," said Shana Kelley (Pharmacy and Biochemistry), a senior author of the study. "A chief reason for use of ineffective or inappropriate antibiotics is the lack of a technology that rapidly offers physicians detailed information about the specific cause of the infection."
The researchers developed an integrated circuit that could detect bacteria at concentrations found in patients presenting with a urinary tract infection. "The chip reported accurately on the type of bacteria in a sample, along with whether the pathogen possessed drug resistance," explained Chemistry Ph.D. student Brian Lam, the first author of the study.
One key to the advance was the design of an integrated circuit that could accommodate a panel of many biomarkers. "The team discovered how to use the liquids in which biological samples are immersed as a 'switch' – allowing us to look separately for each biomarker in the sample in turn," said Ted Sargent (Electrical and Computer Engineering), the other senior author of the report.
"The solution-based circuit chip rapidly and identifies and determines the antibiotic resistance of multiple pathogens – this represents a significant advance in biomolecular sensing," said Paul S. Weiss, Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Science and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.
Ihor Boszko, Director of Business Development at Xagenic, a Toronto-based in vitro diagnostics company said the breakthrough could have significant practical implications. "This kind of highly sensitive, enzyme-free electrochemical detection technology will have tremendous utility for near patient clinical diagnostics. Multiplexing of in vitro diagnostic approach adds the capability of simultaneously testing for multiple viruses or bacteria that produce similar clinical symptoms. It also allows for simple and cost effective manufacturing of highly multiplexed electrochemical detectors, which will certainly have a significant impact on the availability of effective diagnostic tools."
###
Other authors of the paper were Jagotamoy Das (Chemistry), Richard Holmes (Pharmacy) and Ludovic Live and Andrew Sage (Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering). The paper, "Solution-based circuits enable rapid and multiplexed pathogen detection," can be found at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130612/ncomms3001/full/ncomms3001.html.
University of Toronto breakthrough allows fast, reliable pathogen identification
2013-06-12
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Do parasites upset food web theory?
2013-06-12
Parasites comprise a large proportion of the diversity of species in every ecosystem. Despite this, they are rarely included in analyses or models of food webs. If parasites play different roles from other predators and prey, however, their inclusion could fundamentally alter our understanding of how food webs are organized. In a paper published 11 June in the open access journal PLOS Biology, Santa Fe Institute Professor Jennifer Dunne and her team test this assertion and show that including parasites does alter the structure of food webs, but that most changes occur because ...
Walking or cycling to work linked to healthier weight in India
2013-06-12
People in India who walk or cycle to work are less likely to be overweight or obese, according to a study led by Christopher Millett from Imperial College London and the Public Health Foundation of India and colleagues. Their paper reporting the study, published in this week's PLOS Medicine, reveals that cyclists are also less likely to have diabetes or high blood pressure compared to people who take public or private transport to work.
These findings are important as they suggest that active travel could reduce rates of important risk factors for many chronic diseases, ...
Low-and middle-income countries need to prioritize noncommunicable disease prevention
2013-06-12
Nine years after the World Health Organization adopted a global strategy on diet, physical activity, and health to address risk factors for chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes (referred to internationally as noncommunicable diseases), only a few low-and middle-income countries have implemented robust national policies to help prevent such diseases, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.
These findings are important as they suggest that the majority of the world's low- and middle-income countries are not ...
Mayo Clinic: Big toe isn't biggest culprit in gout flare-ups; other joints tied to higher risk
2013-06-12
MADRID -- The painful rheumatic condition gout is often associated with the big toe, but it turns out that patients at highest risk of further flare-ups are those whose gout first involved other joints, such as a knee or elbow, Mayo Clinic has found. The study is among several that Mayo researchers are presenting in Madrid at the European League Against Rheumatism's annual meeting. In other findings, Mayo discovered a clue to why lupus tends to be worse in African-Americans; chronicled erratic blood pressure in rheumatoid arthritis patients; found gout-like deposits in ...
Researchers discover 2-step mechanism of inner ear tip link regrowth
2013-06-12
A team of NIH-supported researchers is the first to show, in mice, an unexpected two-step process that happens during the growth and regeneration of inner ear tip links. Tip links are extracellular tethers that link stereocilia, the tiny sensory projections on inner ear hair cells that convert sound into electrical signals, and play a key role in hearing. The discovery offers a possible mechanism for potential interventions that could preserve hearing in people whose hearing loss is caused by genetic disorders related to tip link dysfunction. The work was supported by ...
Childhood cancer survivors found to have significant undiagnosed disease as adults
2013-06-12
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has found that childhood cancer survivors overwhelmingly experience a significant amount of undiagnosed, serious disease through their adult years, establishing the importance of proactive, life-long clinical health screenings for this growing high-risk population. The findings appear in the June 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Overall, 98 percent of the 1,713 survivors in the study had at least one chronic health condition, hundreds of which were diagnosed through clinical screenings conducted as part ...
Intervention improves adherence to antibiotic prescribing guidelines for children
2013-06-12
An intervention consisting of clinician education coupled with personalized audit and feedback about antibiotic prescribing improved adherence to prescribing guidelines for common pediatric bacterial acute respiratory tract infections, although the intervention did not affect antibiotic prescribing for viral infections, according to a study in the June 12 issue of JAMA.
"Antibiotics are the most common prescription drugs given to children. Although hospitalized children frequently receive antibiotics, the vast majority of antibiotic use occurs in the outpatient setting, ...
Very high prevalence of chronic health conditions among adult survivors of childhood cancer
2013-06-12
In an analysis that included more than 1,700 adult survivors of childhood cancer, researchers found a very high percentage of survivors with 1 or more chronic health conditions, with an estimated cumulative prevalence of any chronic health condition of 95 percent at age 45 years, according to a study in the June 12 issue of JAMA.
"Curative therapy for pediatric malignancies has produced a growing population of adults formerly treated for childhood cancer who are at risk for health problems that appear to increase with aging. The prevalence of cancer-related toxic effects ...
Maternal overweight and obesity during pregnancy associated with increased risk of preterm delivery
2013-06-12
In a study that included more than 1.5 million deliveries in Sweden, maternal overweight and obesity during pregnancy were associated with increased risk for preterm delivery, with the highest risks observed for extremely preterm deliveries, according to a study in the June 12 issue of JAMA.
"Maternal overweight and obesity has, due to the high prevalence and associated risks, replaced smoking as the most important preventable risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes in many countries. Preterm birth, defined as a delivery of a liveborn infant before 37 gestational weeks, ...
Certain inflammatory biomarkers associated with increased risk of COPD exacerbations
2013-06-12
Simultaneously elevated levels of the biomarkers C-reactive protein, fibrinogen and leukocyte count in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were associated with increased risk of having exacerbations, even in those with milder COPD and in those without previous exacerbations, according to a study in the June 12 issue of JAMA.
"Exacerbations of respiratory symptoms in COPD are of major importance because of their profound and long-lasting adverse effects on patients. Frequent episodes accelerate loss of lung function, affect the quality of life ...