To rapidly identify appropriate antimicrobial agents for the treatment of bloodstream infection (BSI), we developed a direct and rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (dRAST) system. This system can determine the antimicrobial susceptibility of bacteria from a positive blood culture bottle (PBCB) in six hours.
We demonstrate a microfluidic agarose channel (MAC) system that reduces the AST assay time for determining MICs by single bacterial time-lapse imaging. By implementing single-cell tracking using a microscope, changes in bacterial cells can be detected as soon as cells start dividing. This allows the antibiotic susceptibility to be determined in 3~4 hours compared to 16 hours when using conventional OD measurement. Rapid AST in microbiology laboratories can have a major impact on the care and outcome of hospitalized patients with infections that require curative antibiotic treatments. Currently, research is underway to further reduce the time required for AST, leading to increases in the survival rate of patients.
