Accelr8 Technology Corp have presented the principles of their Quantum Microbiology™ approach in a technical poster at the AACC's 38th annual Oak Ridge Conference, the poster was titled "Identification and growth rate quantitation of individual bacterial clones using a novel microfluidic concentration device."

The poster summarized methods and results of laboratory work that demonstrate the performance of the analyses being designed into the company's BACcelr8r™ rapid bacterial analysis system.

The research used Accelr8's patent-pending Quantum Microbiology™ methods for analyzing individually identified cells. The results included data from experimental models for each of seven key operating characteristics:

Specimen preparation
Bacterial concentration and surface immobilization
Bacterial viability after immobilization
Species immuno-identification
Quantitative growth rate measurement
Growth rate comparability to standard methods
Quantitative antibiotic kill rate measurement.

The company intends the BACcelr8r™ to become the world's first diagnostic system to provide bacterial identification and quantitation in 2 hours or less, and complete antibiotic resistance strain identification in 8 hours or less.

The reported research used standard bacterial reference strains and studied each step in the analytical process. “Our next steps include integrating all of the analytical steps into a single continuous procedure,” Howson continued. “We also will also proceed to studies using known concentrations of bacteria in biological fluids. These studies will help to demonstrate our ability to eliminate culturing and isolation, and analyze bacteria extracted directly from a specimen.”

The company will present a poster at this years ASM meeting in Orlando, 21st to 25th May.