First-of-Its-Kind Infectious Disease Diagnostic Platform to Deliver Rapid Antibiotic Treatment Guidance

By LabMedica International staff writers
Posted on 03 May 2023

Image: Pattern’s single-cell microbiology platform could revolutionize bacterial testing (Photo courtesy of Freepix)

Annually, around 1.3 million lives and countless healthcare dollars are lost due to drug-resistant bacterial infections, highlighting the urgent need for faster diagnostic tools to facilitate targeted antibiotic treatment. Conventional culture-based tests may take up to four days to provide a definitive diagnosis for critically ill patients. Research indicates that patients with drug-resistant infections face a four to seven times higher risk of death if effective antibiotic treatment is delayed by even 24 hours. Now, a revolutionary phenotypic test platform for infectious diseases has the potential to quickly identify the infection-causing pathogen and offer precise guidance on the most suitable antibiotic for treatment.

Pattern Bioscience, Inc. (Austin, TX, USA), an innovator in rapid diagnosis and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) for bacterial infections, is pioneering the use of single-cell microbiology to rapidly diagnose drug-resistant bacterial infections and identify effective treatments. The company's unique single-cell microbiology technology represents the first culture-free, rapid phenotypic testing platform capable of delivering clinically actionable results in a timeframe that allows healthcare professionals to administer timely, life-saving treatments to patients, significantly improving outcomes.

By employing single-cell analysis of microorganisms in conjunction with machine learning, Pattern's innovative technology can produce clinically actionable information that identifies the responsible pathogen and assesses its antibiotic susceptibility within hours, as opposed to the days needed for standard culture-based tests. Pattern's proprietary single-cell analysis technology accelerates testing by directly measuring the live response of each pathogenic cell, eliminating the need for lengthy culture procedures. Phenotypic pattern recognition encompasses every resistance mechanism, whether known or unknown, existing or emerging, simple or complex, genetic, or epigenetic. Evaluating the phenotypic bacterial response to antibiotics ensures that the clinical validity of the current gold standard is upheld for rapid testing.

Traditional lab tests require days to complete, as they depend on the time-intensive growth and average response of millions of bacteria to potential antibiotic treatments. Pattern's technology, on the other hand, allows for testing directly from non-sterile specimens, improving upon the qualities that have established traditional culture as the gold standard for bacterial diagnosis. The company's first test, which has been granted US FDA Breakthrough Device Designation, targets hospitalized patients with pneumonia. In the future, Pattern's technology is expected to support a comprehensive range of other tests.

“We believe our technology will significantly impact patient outcomes and help tackle the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance,” said Nick Arab, co-founder and CEO of Pattern Bioscience.

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Pattern Bioscience, Inc.