10068538Novel, Rapid, Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test for Bloodstream InfectionsClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKBacteria are increasingly becoming resistant to many of the antibiotics that we use to treat infections that they cause. This is known as Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and is one of the WHO's top 10 Global Healthcare Challenges - it directly causes over 1 million deaths per year - more than AIDS and malaria combined - and contributes to many millions more, as well as costing healthcare systems £billions in treatment costs. The situation is further worsened by the fact no new antibiotics have been developed wince the 1980s. A significant contributor to this problem is the fact that current tests for which antibiotic is best to treat a given patient, known as Antimicrobial Susceptibility Tests (ASTs), take 2-3 days to determine the resistance or susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics. The University of Southampton has developed a novel technique for rapidly measuring the properties of individual particles and cells which has potential for a much faster and more automated AST, giving results within a few hours from a raw sample. This techniques is called Impedance Flow Cytometry and is being commercialised by a new spinout called iFAST Diagnostics, which has just raised £2m of funding. In collaboration with the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA), the technology has been demonstrated to work on urine samples, which is important for patients with suspected Urinary tract Infections (UTIs). However, patients with bloodstream infections (BSIs) are often more sick, and the delays in prescribing the right antibiotic are thus often much more serious than for UTIs and are the cause of the majority of these 1 million deaths. The aim of this project is to develop, adapt and automate this technique to enable it to be used to measure bacteria extracted from blood samples and thus demonstrate a game-changing Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test that has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives per year, as well as to shorten hospital stays and save global healthcare systems a large amount of money.