Development of a minute-fast bacteria detection system
Already in the past year clinical tests at the University Hospital of Regensburg (UKR) have shown that by using the photodynamic product Dyphox from the company TriOptoTec GmbH coated antimicrobial surfaces can hugely reduce the number of bacteria in hospital (see BioPark PR No. 229, March 2020). In the next step under the leadership consortium of the Department for Hospital Hygiene and Infection Control at the UKR a further step in the direction of patient safety is to be undertaken. In one of the projects funded by the Bavarian Research Foundation (“PACMAN”) testing is to occur on what influence the coating has on the spread of bacteria from surfaces in the proximity to patients. Here surfaces in two intensive care units will be coated. Additionally a minute-fast bacteria detection system is to be developed and tested.
“With the result of the first clinical tests in the emergency department at the UKR we are more than satisfied”, summed up Professor Dr. Wulf Schneider, Head of Department for Hospital Hygiene and Infection Control at the UKR and sole University Professor for Hospital Hygiene in the whole of Bavaria. “The antimicrobial surface coating on the basis of photodynamics has drastically reduced the bacterial load on treated surfaces. Now we would like to test which pathogens causing disease further spread across surfaces in the proximity of patients, how this happens and above all whether this can be prevented by using coating.”
From this scientific point of view Professor Dr. Schneider and Professor Dr. Wolfgang Bäumler, research group leader working at the Clinic and Polyclinic for Dermatology are starting this new phase of research together with both Regensburg BioPark companies PreSens GmbH and Dyphox (TriOptoTec GmbH), the later founded from the UKR. The “PACMAN” project with a project sum of 1.5 million Euro is being funded by the Bavarian Research Foundation for three years.
In the transfer of disease-causing pathogens many surfaces in the patient environment play an important role. So called mixing zones, meaning surfaces in which patients and medical personnel similarly come into contact also play an important role in the further spread of pathogens. In the course of a day in an intensive care unit there are more than 200 hand contacts between patient and personnel.
To test the further spread of disease-causing pathogens, in a research project at two intensive care units at the UKR with the aid of the most modern sequencing processes, a type of movement profile of disease-causing pathogens on surfaces are being tested. The company PreSens has developed a sensor foil which with the help of living bacteria can be identified by their consumption of oxygen. The goal of the project is to develop a detector which within a few minutes can measure directly on-site whether the bacteria have been killed off on the surface. To date such measurements to determine pathogens in a laboratory took up to 48 hours.