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Bacterial Eavesdropping for Fast Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing

Project description

Rapid diagnosis of antimicrobial susceptibility

In microbiology, antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is used to determine the most effective antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection by identifying which antibiotics the infecting bacteria are susceptible or resistant to. Depending on the method, AST can take up to a few days to provide a result, hampering patient outcomes, especially in severe infections where a delay in appropriate treatment can be critical. Funded by the European Innovation Council, the BE FAST project promotes a graphene-based biosensor technology to revolutionise AST and reduce testing time to under an hour. This method detects bacterial movement and correlates it to antibiotic susceptibility. Refinement of this technology will enable cost-effective, high-throughput testing and improved patient outcomes.

Objective

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health problem, endangering milliAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health problem, endangering millions of lives. Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST) plays a crucial role in determining the type and concentration of antibiotics required to inhibit the growth of a pathogen. However, the major issue with the current ASTs is the slow diagnostics, from 24h to a few days, leading to mis-prescriptions and/or over-prescriptions, thus severely impacting treatment outcomes. At SoundCell, we developed SoundCell technology, a breakthrough technique that reduces the AST time from a few days to less than 1 hour. It is a graphene-based biosensor technology that uses nanomechanical vibrations of ultrathin micron-sized graphene drums to detect the motion of a single bacterium. We demonstrated that motion of alive and dead bacteria are different when adhered to the graphene sensors and we can correlate such changes to antibiotic susceptibility. During the EICT, we will mature SoundCell technology into a high-throughput cost-effective AST. We will develop high-volume manufacturing methods and engineer a user-friendly low-cost prototype readout system. We will validate our AST prototype in 2 clinical labs through testing of a variety of pathogenic clinical isolates and benchmarking speed and sensitivity of our platform against other AST techniques. We will establish our exploitation strategy and regulatory roadmap, develop, and execute the business model, and develop stakeholders engagement.
SoundCell technology will directly lower healthcare expenses by shortening hospital stays with fewer lab and diagnostics tests and improve clinical outcomes of patients by reducing recovery time, secondary complications and mortality. We have filed 2 patent applications and envision another 4 patents over the project duration. By 2030 we forecast 17M revenues and employment for up to 60 personnel.

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HORIZON-EIC - HORIZON EIC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2023-TRANSITION-01

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Coordinator

SOUNDCELL B.V.
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 499 143,75
Address
MOLENGRAAFFSINGEL 12
2629JD Delft
Netherlands

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 499 143,75
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