Researchers identify non-culturable microbes from bloodstream infections

15-Feb-2011 - Germany

Molzym has developed in collaboration with NorDiag ASA the first automated platform worldwide for the culture-independent universal identification of microorganisms from whole blood. Clinical studies have shown that a high proportion of microbial infections are not detectable by conventional growth culture. Microbial growth in culture media can be inhibited by antibiotic pretreatment and complex microbial nutrition requirements. A group of researchers from the Institute of Medical microbiology, Ulm, Germany recently have shown in a study on culture-independent broad-range identification of microbes from bloodstream, synovial fluid and CSF infections that up to 63% of infections are culture negative. Conventional culturing of bacterial and fungal infections can take up to seven days for identification of the organism.

Nosocomial infections and antibiotic resistances have dramatically increased in recent years, and there is increased demand in the hospitals for rapid, sensitive, culture-independent identification technologies.

Generally, molecular identification can help filling the dangerous gap of culture-negative infections (CNI). Because infections are caused by a broad-range of pathogens, molecular technologies that enable the verification of any microbial strain from clinical specimens are demanded.

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