From FAST To FIRST and Handy: Rapid Detection of AMR

Tim Inglis from the University of Western Australia in Australia will develop a screening test that can be used in remote and low-resource settings to detect antibiotic resistance and ensure the right antibiotics can be prescribed. The emergence of antimicrobial resistance is a huge threat to global public health, and therefore needs to be accurately and rapidly detected, characterized and monitored. They will further develop their method based on flow cytometry that uses fluorescent dyes to rapidly detect changes in bacterial cells upon first exposure to an antibiotic. Different combinations of antibiotics, bacteria and colored dyes will be evaluated, and the test will be analyzed for sensitivity and specificity.