Title: Innovations in Bioanalytical Techniques for diagnosing Infectious Diseases
Abstract:
Infectious diseases, especially bacterial, continue to haunt the healthcare system of most countries. Accurate and timely diagnosis of these bacterial infections is imperative to prevent the high morbidity, mortality, length of stay and cost associated with them. Though advances in molecular biology have shorten the time-to-diagnosis, they are limited by high cost and technical dependence. There is, thus, an unmet need to develop innovative ways that would short the turn-around-time of diagnostic tests, without additional burden on workflow, cost and technical requirement. The talk will include innovative ways by which bioanalytical tools like MALDI-TOF MS, and techniques like magnetic bead flocculation and broth microdilution were incorporated into routine workflow of a high-throughput microbiology lab and how they brought about a favourable change by not only improving the patient outcome but also reducing the time and cost involved. The talk will encompass the wide applications that can be harnessed from MALDI-TOF MS in a routine microbiology laboratory – from identification of organism to susceptibility testing, typing and dendrogram analysis. Innovative technique of detecting amplified nucleic acid using simple magnetic beads instead of gel electrophoresis and other costly dyes will also be discussed. The menace of bacterial infections in any healthcare center can be adjudged by the rate of multi-drug resistant pathogens (MDROs) reported, especially gram-negative bacterial that do not respond to any drug except colistin. Performing susceptibility testing for colistin has been a universal challenge but innovative way of pre-prepared frozen plates can be tried to achieve the difficult task. The talk will cover more similar aspects in detail.
