Antibiotic-resistant bacteria and such resistance are one of the most common and worrying concerns for healthcare professionals around the world. The increasing incidence of the disease therefore represents a major obstacle to the treatment of many bacterial and other diseases.Antibiotic resistance occurs, when the bacteria become resistant to the effects of antibiotics for several reasons. However, a step forward in preventing and treating antibiotic resistance is the availability of a testing method that is simple, inexpensive and rapid.
How can antibiotic-resistant bacteria be identified?
Researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Binghamton University's Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Sciences have found a wayto test bacteria. The device they developed offers a faster way to detect antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The study was published in the November issue of the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics. This research is based on the same principle as batteries – bacterial electron transfer. This is a chemical process that certain microorganisms use for growth, general cell maintenance, and exchanging information with surrounding microorganisms. The traditional method for testing antibiotic resistance uses extracted bacteria from a patient. It compares laboratory cultures grown with and without antibiotics. However, the results take one to two days, increasing the mortality rate, the length of hospital stays and also the cost of treatment.
To effectively treat the infections, scientists need to select the right antibiotics at the exact dose for the appropriate duration, the study authors said. It is necessary to develop a testing method for antibiotic susceptibility and provide effective guidelines for the treatment of these infections. The new device could provide results on antibiotic resistance in just five hours. This would serve as an important point-of-care diagnostic tool, particularly in resource-limited areas. A medical team would take a sample from a patient, inoculate the bacteria with different antibiotics over a few hours, and then measure the rate of electron transfer. A lower rate would mean the antibiotics are working. The hypothesisof the studyis that antiviral exposure could sufficiently inhibit bacterial electron transfer. The readout by the device would then be sensitive enough to show small fluctuations in electrical output caused by changes in antibiotic effectiveness.
