Alifax S.r.l. Highlights First Automated System for Bacterial Culture and Susceptibility Testing

Alifax S.r.l. (Padua, Italy) highlighted its innovative diagnostic instrumentation portfolio at the 2019 edition of MEDICA, the world's largest trade fair for medical technology, held from 18 to 21 November in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Alifax is present in the laboratory diagnostic market and develops instruments and kits with a focus of the total laboratory automation requirements providing fast and reliable results, method standardization, sample traceability and easy-to-use protocols. Alifax’s innovative diagnostic products include Test1 and Roller 20 for the analysis of ESR in 20 seconds, Alfred AST sepsis analyzer for RAPID Bacterial Culture, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and MDRO screening and ALIBOX, a smart patented device designed to improve and certify bio-material transportation by active temperature control and multiple-parameter monitoring as temperature and location on a cloud-based service. It has also introduced the new I-dOne, a reagent free ATR-FTIR based system for microorganism identification in only one minute from isolated colony without sample preparation or pre-treatment.

At MEDICA 2019, Alifax highlighted its real walk-away automated streaking system for rapid bacterial culture and plate streaking of liquid samples that is composed of two units: Alfred 60AST and Sidecar. Alfred 60AST is the first fully automated system able to perform bacterial culture, RAA and susceptibility testing by automating the entire process of sample inoculation, reading and result transmission. Using patented technology based on light scattering, it is able to detect the presence of bacteria and their drug resistance in a few hours with high sensitivity and specificity. Alfred 60AST monitors the growth phases of bacteria from the inoculum step into specific culture broths, providing real time growth curves and quantitative bacterial count results in CFU/ml. Broth turbidity level is detected by the McFarland Monitor and as the sample reaches the 0.5 McFarland, it is buffered into the refrigerated area and then tested with a customized antibiotic panel. The Sidecar streaking unit stocks 240 Petri dishes and up to 12 different media. The streaked dishes are incubated on board at 37°C for the requested analysis time.

Alifax also highlighted HB&L, the first analyzer able to perform bacterial culture, RAA test and susceptibility testing on samples such as urine, sterile or non sterile fluids and other biological samples. Using patented technology based on light scattering, it can detect the presence of bacteria and their drug resistance in a few hours with high sensitivity and specificity. HB&L also monitors the growth phases of bacteria from the inoculum step into specific culture broths providing real time growth curves and quantitative bacterial count results in CFU/ml. Broth turbidity level is detected by McFarland Monitor and, as the sample reaches the 0.5 McFarland, a visual and audible alert advises that the bacterial culture is ready to be tested for a customized antibiotic panel without awaiting the end of the analysis and avoiding further dilution steps. HB&L’s software flexibility allows different tests to be performed simultaneously, with each reading unit position being independent from the others and can be set according to sample type, incubation time, test profile, analytical protocol and cut-off.

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