Rapid parallel screening for infectious agents and their antibiotic susceptibility using superRCA

There is a great unmet need for broadly applicable techniques to rapidly identify any of large numbers of infectious agents and their antibiotic susceptibility in sepsis and other serious infectious diseases.

My lab has developed a technique – gap-fill superRCA - with unique advantages for rapidly screening large sets of gene sequences at very high specificity and sensitivity. The technique can be applied with widely available lab instrumentation, simplifying the uptake of such new assays.

The automated assay involves two consecutive padlock probing reactions and two rolling circle amplification reactions that together generate for each detected target molecule a digital object, which can be identified and enumerated via standard flow cytometers.

In this proof of concept project we will adapt the procedure to screen for up to 100 different bacterial sequences as a means to select optimal therapy for sepsis patients.

We will optimize the assay procedure and in parallel we will explore how this technology can best address clinical needs in infection medicine in collaboration with a leading bacteriologist at UU and a professor of clinical microbiology at KI.

The aim is to arrive at a mature business strategy and a path to commercialization at an existing or newly started company, in line with established practice in my lab.