The rapid isolation and identification of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens are critically demanded in global healthcare and precision medicine. However, time-consuming, culture-based methods are currently used for the detection of pathogens since there is no rapid precision molecular diagnostic platform. In this work, we develop a rapid isolation and identification of drug-resistant pathogens with smartphone-based optical system (SOS). For the pathogens detection from human blood sample, we precipitate RBCs with pre-mixed dextran for 10 minutes and isolate bacteria by plasma filtration and deionized water washing in 10 minutes. Currently, we demonstrate the 60 % recovery of pathogens at significantly low concentrations of ~10 CFU/mL. After the isolation of pathogens and optical confirmation, the identification of pathogens is being accomplished by photonic PCR on chip and SOS. The SOS photonic PCR with sample preparation in less than 30 min will assist clinicians effectively for rapid therapeutic decisions and precision infection controls.
Project end date: 06/01/20