Researchers are testing a computer program in three United Kingdom hospitals that analyzes bacteria from patient infections and determines which antibiotics will and won't work against them, based on which antibiotic-resistant genes the bacteria carry.
The software is called Mykrobe Predictor and was developed by researchers from the University of Oxford's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. The program can run on a standard laptop computer and doesn't require users to have any special expertise. The program is capable of analyzing the entire genetic code of bacteria in under three minutes after the sample has been cultured and its DNA sequenced.
A study of the software published in Nature Communications found it is capable of accurately predicting antibiotic resistance in both methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and tuberculosis. Mykrobe Predictor was able to determine resistance to the five first-line antibiotics in over 99 percent of staph infections and 82.6 percent of TB infections. The paper also demonstrated the program's ability to identify infections in which the bacteria contain a mixture of both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant bacteria.