At the moment, hospitals rely on troublesome and inefficient methods to identify bacteria in a patient’s blood sample. First they have to incubate blood samples in vials for 24 to 48 hours just to see whether bacteria is present. After that, they need to perform more tests to determine what sort of bacteria it is – and that takes another day. By then some bacteria would have already caused the death of a patient. A quicker method is needed. And a chemist from the University of Illinois seems to have the answer.
Professor Ken Suslick has come up with a new way to detect bacteria. He developed an “artificial nose” system. Using an array of cards printed with 36 cross-reactive pigment dots, the cards change color when they detect chemicals produced by bacteria in the surrounding air. By monitoring the sniffing cards every half-hour and noticing the changes in the color of dots on the cards, scientists could identify bacteria with 98.8% accuracy – and the whole process takes only a few hours instead of days.
Suslick is now working on improving and commercializing the technology through his own company, iSense. Expect it to be used in hospitals in the near future – once it gets approval from the FDA of course.
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