University of California Irvine researchers have created a new bloodstream infection test that can diagnose such an infection in as little as 90 minutes.
The Integrated Comprehensive Droplet Digital Detection test can detect bacteria in milliliters of blood. It is different from other diagnostic tools because it "converts blood samples directly into billions of very small droplets," according to a news release. This minimizes the interference of other components in the blood and makes it easier to directly target bacteria without a purification process.
Additionally, the test is more sensitive than other diagnosis methods, like polymerase chain reaction, which can't detect low concentrations of bacteria in blood.
"We are extremely excited about this technology because it addresses a long-standing unmet medical need in the field," Weian Zhao, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at UCI who led the team, said. "As a platform technology, it may have many applications in detecting extremely low-abundance biomarkers in other areas, such as cancers, HIV and, most notably, Ebola."
A spinoff from the UCI team, Velox Biosystems, is developing the technology further.