PORTFOLIO

There is a worldwide rise in antibiotics resistant bacteria. In the case of bacterial infection, there is therefore the need to quickly determine for each patient the susceptibility or not to antibiotics of the infecting bacteria in order to prescribe as quickly as possible the correct drug. Our patented technology based on microlevers permit in a short time span (10-30 minutes) to test for the antibiotic susceptibility, which must be compared to a day or days for the standard methods. The project aim is to develop the technology allowing a parallel test (10 different antibiotics) and to construct a prototype that can be field-tested in a hospital lab for medical validation of the technology.

This project aims at bringing a new quick method for a medical diagnostic tool based on nanotechnology and to transfer the technology to the market.

The method was developed in our laboratory and several publications appeared in high impact scientific journal. Presently the technique was validated using a single lever apparatus.

Within the first part of this project we have evaluated different technologies for the detection of the sensor’s motion and compared them in order to find the suitable technology permitting an easy parallelization of the device. In the second phase of the project we have developed a diagnostic tool that is easy to operate and has a much better performance that the one we had up to now. This apparatus is now ready to be put in a hospital environment for direct testing our method against the standard methods and to assess the clinical impact. To this end we have continued the collaboration with the CHUV hospital and tested with samples issued from bacteria strains that are susceptible or resistant to antibiotics our device (single lever device), and could validate the effectiveness of the device with a high degree of confidence. We are also participating to the National Research Program 72 which has as main goals to fight bacterial resistance to antibiotics. A start-up company is under formation which should market the new diagnostic tool.

Stupar, P., Opota, O., Longo, G., Prod'hom, G., Dietler, G., Greub, G. Kasas, S. "Nanomechanical sensor applied to blood culture pellets: a fast approach to determine the antibiotic susceptibility against agents of bloodstream infections", Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 23 (2017) 400-405;
Stupar, P., Chomicki, W., Maillard, C., Mikeladze, D., Kalauzi, A., Radotic, K., Dietler, G., Kasas, S.,"Mitochondrial activity detected by cantilever based sensor", Mechanical Sciences, 8 (2017)23-28;
Arnal, L., Longo, G.,Stupar, P., Castez, M. F., Cattelan, N., Salvarezza, R. C., Yantorno, O. M., Kasas, S., Vela, M. E., Localization of adhesins on the surface of a pathogenic bacterial envelope through atomic force microscopy, Nanoscale, 7(2015) 17563-17572;
Kasas, S., Stupar, P., Longo, G. and Dietler, G., 2015, Detect the life through atomic force microscopy, M S-Medecine Sciences, 31, p 369-371;
Kasas, S., Ruggeri, F. S., Benadiba, C., Maillard, C., Stupar, P., Tournu, H., Dietler, G. and Longo, G. 2015, Detecting nanoscale vibrations as signature of life, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112, p 378-381
Alonso-Sarduy, L., De Los Rios, P., Benedetti, F., Vobornik, D., Dietler, G., Kasas, S. and Longo, G., 2014, Time Monitoring of Protein Conformational Changes Using a Nano-Mechanical Sensor, Plos One, 9, E103674;
Aghayee, S., Benadiba, C., Notz, J., Kasas, S., Dietler, G. and Longo, G., 2013 Combination of fluorescence microscopy and nanomotion detection to characterize bacteria, Journal of Molecular Recognition, 26, p 590-595;
Longo, G., Alonso-Sarduy, L., Rio, L. M., Bizzini, A., Trampuz, A., Notz, J., Dietler, G. and Kasas, S., 2013, Rapid detection of bacterial resistance to antibiotics using AFM cantilevers as nanomechanical sensors, Nature Nanotechnology, 8, p 522-526;
Longo, G., Rio, L. M., Trampuz, A., Dietler, G., Bizzini, A. and Kasas, S., 2013, Antibiotic-induced modifications of the stiffness of bacterial membranes, Journal of Microbiological Methods, 93, p 80-84.

Is That Bacteria Dead Yet?, EPFL News Mediacom, 3.7.2013