Smartphones fight against resistance to microbes

A series of LEDs illuminates the sample and then the camera of the phone is used to detect small changes in the transmission of light

  A team of researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States has developed an automated diagnostic test reader on antimicrobial resistance using a smartphone. The technology could lead to routine testing of antimicrobial susceptibility in areas with limited resources.

Bacteria resistant to antimicrobial agents represent a serious threat to world public health. In particular, they are becoming more common in bacterial pathogens responsible for diseases of high mortality, such as pneumonia, diarrhea and sepsis.

  Part of the challenge in combating the spread of these organisms has been the limited ability to perform antimicrobial susceptibility testing in regions that do not have access to laboratories, test equipment and diagnostic technicians trained to read such analyzes.

The UCLA researchers have developed a simple and inexpensive smartphone accessory that can perform automated antimicrobial susceptibility testing, as detailed in an article on the research published in the journal 'Scientific Reports'.

"This work is extremely important and timely, as drug-resistant bacteria are increasingly becoming a global threat that makes many of our first-line antibiotics ineffective," says one of the authors, Aydogan Ozcan, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UCLA.

This interdisciplinary collaborative project involved the UCLA research laboratories of three professors: Ozcan; Omai Garner, assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; and Dino Di Carlo, professor of Bioengineering. Your device connects to a smartphone and has a board that can hold up to 96 storage tanks for testing.

A series of LEDs illuminates the sample and then the phone's camera is used to detect small changes in light transmission from each reservoir containing a different dose selected from a panel of antibiotics. The images are sent to a server to automatically perform antimicrobial susceptibility tests and the results are returned to the smartphone in approximately one minute.