A growing number of people are dying from antibiotic-resistant infections. These infections are fueled by microbial species that are mutating to evade the drugs developed to destroy them. More than 1.2 million people worldwide died in 2019 from antibiotic-resistant infections.
In response, a team of researchers from Mayo Clinic’s Center for Individualized Medicine has developed a sequencing technology to rapidly detect and identify microbes and antibiotic-resistant phenotypes in a single test. The innovative nanopore sequencing method is published in Surgery and mSphere,
“We demonstrated that nanopore sequencing can be used to predict infections within hours of sample collection and days before patients begin displaying symptoms," says Emma Whittle, Ph.D., a research fellow within the Department of Surgery, and lead author of the study.
"This could help prevent life-threatening infections by reducing diagnostic time from days to just hours,” Dr. Whittle says. “It could also enable clinicians to better tailor antibiotics to infections.”
Read the rest of the article on the Individualized Medicine blog.
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