ISLAMABAD, Jan 26 (APP): In near future, identifying the
bacterial species responsible for infections developing in
hospital patients will take just a few minutes, thanks to the
scientists who developed such an analytical procedure.
Developed by researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry
of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, the main role is
played by innovative bioconjugates – luminescent, magnetic
microparticles coated with appropriately selected bacteriophages.
The detection device used in the new technique for identifying
bacteria is a flow cytometer.
“Measurement in the cytometer typically takes about a minute. The
result is a graph on which we see how all the bioconjugates
scatter the incident light and emit the fluorescence. Since we
know the signal, we should obtain from pure bioconjugates, and can
easily determine whether the sample contains the bacteria we are
looking for, and if so, in what concentration,” the researchers
noted in a paper published in the journal Bioconjugate Chemistry.
According to researchers, the identification of the bacteria can
be carried out in almost any hospital analysis laboratory and the
waiting time for the result is reduced to minutes.
“Faster, better, cheaper – we managed to achieve all of these
objectives. This can be seen by any interested party as, in full
awareness, we relinquished patent protection,” said Jan Paczesny
from the Polish National Science Centre.