Bristol-based FluoretiQ is developing fast and accurate point-of-care tests to enable more targeted antibiotic use and mitigate the impending crisis being caused by growing antimicrobial resistance.
FluoretiQ has announced that the European Patent for SCFI, a groundbreaking antibiotic susceptibility testing platform, invented by a team of UoB researchers led by Dr. Massimo Antognozzi and under exclusive license to FluoretiQ has now been granted. This is a critical milestone on the journey to commercialisation and provides external validation in the technology.
SCFI is an optical system that uses machine learning to analyse nanoscale movement in bacterial cells. Within just 30 minutes of treatment with antibiotics, it can determine whether the cells are alive, dead or dying and thereby determine which antibiotics would be most effective.
The next stage for FluoretiQ is to continue the development of a 30-minute point-of-care system – this would be one of the world’s fastest and most accurate phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility tests and will initially address UTIs and STDs.