Indian startups working on rapid tests to checkmate antibiotic resistance


Overuse and misuse of antibiotic drugs has given rise to disease-causing bugs developing resistance. In order to provide effective treatment for various infections, it has become necessary to quickly find out if an infection-causing agent is resistant or susceptible to drugs. Four research startups with innovative ideas have been selected for research grants to develop such rapid tests.

The Discovery Award seed funding, totaling 200,000 dollars, will help four Indian research groups to develop their ideas into prototypes and products and also bid for an international prize called the Longitude Prize. The £10 million five-year Longitude Prize launched in 2014 will be given to the best point-of-care test to detect infections to help ensure that the right antibiotics are used at the right time. The Discovery Awards in India are funded by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council in India (BIRAC).

The new ideas awarded this year include an imaging device to perform rapid diagnosis of antibiotic resistant bacteria for urinary tract infections, by a group called as cAST. This team is working on an automated device which could be operated without the help of a trained lab technician to generate antibiotic susceptibility reports from urine samples. The proposed device will able to detect small features of a bacterial cell which can help determine viability of the cell....Read more

 

Source web page:Biovoicenew


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