Under-oil open microfluidic systems for rapid phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Clinical Microbiology
• Microfluidics

Background:

• Phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is crucial for effective antibiotic selection but traditional methods are slow.
• Advances in molecular diagnostics have not significantly sped up culture-based phenotypic AST.
• Microfluidics offers potential for rapid, high-throughput, and automated AST.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel open microfluidic system for rapid phenotypic AST.
• To demonstrate the system's ability to accurately determine antimicrobial activity and resistance.
• To integrate the system with cloud-based analytics for fast reporting.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an under-oil open microfluidic system (UOMS) for microbial culture and antibiotic exposure.
• Enabled label-free, single-cell resolution optical access and standard pipetting.
• Combined UOMS with cloud lab data analytics for real-time image analysis and report generation.

Main Results:

• Achieved rapid phenotypic AST with a turnaround time under 4 hours.
• Demonstrated accurate determination of antimicrobial activities, including breakpoints and MICs.
• Showcased the system's compatibility with clinical laboratory standards and optical microscopy.

Conclusions:

• The UOMS-AST platform provides a versatile solution for rapid phenotypic AST.
• It is suitable for various settings, from low-resource labs to high-throughput automated systems.
• This technology has the potential to significantly improve antimicrobial stewardship in clinical settings.