£ 10 million for anyone to find a solution against antibiotic resistance

But indeed, coupled with a big reward is never an easy task. Just imagine that shortening the test takes 5 days to 15 minutes.

You've probably heard of a "doomed scenario", when antibiotic pills are ineffective. At that time, even a scratch on the skin can lead to infection and death. More and more bacteria can be resistant to the antibiotics we have. "Doomsday" may not have been identified. But right now, the world has about 700,000 people die every year because of the virus resistant to drugs.

Forecasts show that if you do not act now, the number of people who die from antibiotic resistance may exceed cancer deaths by 2050. So what have we started to do to prevent this? there?

Although pharmaceutical companies have stopped developing new antibiotics in recent decades, many methods focus on alternative treatments being studied, such as phage therapy. In addition, there are many measures to prevent the abuse of antibiotics in livestock.

However, there is still one of the promising approaches that we have not mentioned. It is to develop rapid diagnostic tests with infected patients.

In the "apocalyptic scenario", the scene of a hospital may look like 1932, when antibiotics have not yet been born.

At this point, diagnosis of bacterial diseases can take up to several days.Delay causes many antibiotics to be prescribed unnecessarily, such as to treat the disease caused by the virus.

So what happens when many scientists are aspiring to a rapid test of bacterial disease in just a few minutes? Certainly, it will reduce the abuse of antibiotics , when drugs are only prescribed in case of necessity.

This does not cause "obedient" bacteria to stop mutating for drug resistance. But it will extend the time that our antibiotics stay in effect. Therefore, there are prizes that are available for scientists if they solve this difficult problem. For example, the Longitude Prize of the British government is worth up to £ 10 million.

But indeed, coupled with a big reward is never an easy task. Just imagine that shortening the test takes 5 days to 15 minutes. In the case of bacteria, there will be many challenges.

A case like Salmonella

Current Salmonella diagnosis can take up to 3 to 5 days.

To be able to visualize the fast diagnostic difficulties, take the example of Salmonella. This strain of bacteria often causes inflammation of the stomach and small intestine or food poisoning. It is present in eggs, chicken and many other food sources.

In some countries, Salmonella strains can cause more serious infections, such as typhoid. The disease can quickly threaten the health of children, the elderly and those with poorly functioning immune systems. That's why fast diagnosis is so important.

However, traditional Salmonella diagnostic methods often take a lot of time, can last from 3 to 5 days. Even the Standards for Microbiology Investigations (SMI) , time has been shortened but still very complicated.

To diagnose Salmonella, clinical laboratories must perform 4 steps. Beginning, you must develop a population of bacteria extracted from the patient's blood sample in a laboratory dish. The development of a whole new strain of bacteria allows for easier diagnosis.

Next, the technician must analyze the bacterial cells under a microscope. Separate Salmonella antibodies will be mixed with the patient's blood sample to look for condensate blocks. Finally, biochemical tests will help identify bacteria based on the enzymes they possess.

In the past few years, several new testing methods have been developed.

Thus, from the perspective of patients, it will still take more than 2 days to get diagnosed with Salmonella. Under ideal conditions, they will be present at the clinic as soon as the disease starts, maybe a few hours. Their blood samples collected and developed a population will take 24 hours. Step 2 of 3 will only take a few minutes. But enzyme testing once again consumes an additional 24 hours.

In some cases, additional steps are needed and the diagnosis will be prolonged for another 24 hours. For example, if bacteria appear at low levels in the blood, or collected samples, there are many different types of bacteria. At the end of the test period, it lasts from 2 to 5 days.

The good news is that in the past few years, several new types of tests have been developed. For example, nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) can detect bacteria, based on the presence of specific DNA in just a few hours. Even a method called MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer can identify bacteria in just a few minutes, based on the protein content of their cells.

However, the faster and more modern methods require more expensive equipment, which often exceeds the investment capacity of many laboratories. In addition, we still have no way to eliminate 24 hours of growth in bacterial cultures. There are quick test methods in return for incorrect results.

The way forward

An HIV test today can be done in 15 minutes, can the same thing be done with bacteria?

Now, if we come from these milestones, what is the destination? Maybe it's a simple and quick test like a pregnancy test. Such a test requires only one doctor or nurse at the end, where the patient will be exposed to the earliest.

It must also be said that it is not unprecedented that such tests have been developed. For example, in the case of a rapid HIV test with a test strip, results can be given within 15 minutes. However, a similar test strip for infections will be much more complicated.

The reason is that in the case of HIV testing, the goal here is to detect antibodies of the virus. Antibodies in case of infection are very different, they need a lot of time to produce. Meanwhile, symptoms of infection appeared earlier. Some bacteria can also trick the immune system, so no scratching antibodies are produced.

That's not to mention that we have to distinguish many types of bacteria from each other. From these types of diseases to harmless bacteria that appear in the body.

Conclude

Hope still exists in the battle with the antibiotic-resistant virus of humanity.

Looking at the difficulties mentioned above, it seems that a fast diagnostic method with bacteria is unlikely to be born in the next few years. But if the time is 10 years, we can be more optimistic.

While the two methods of MALDI -TOF and NAATs may not be the answer, many other laboratories have begun to develop new methods, such as using sensors or identifying molecules that respond to infections but muscle can produce. One of the methods does not need a proliferation process to create populations, so it can save up to 24 hours of diagnosis.

Many awards, such as the Longitude Prize, have also been available for scientists who can develop methods to cope with the threat of antibiotic resistance that people face. But most of all, we all know that despite facing any difficulty, human nature is never to give up. Hope still exists in the battle with the antibiotic-resistant virus of humanity.