Research Team of IIT Guwahati Develops Rapid Bacteria Detection Device

The researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT Guwahati) have created a low-cost, hand-held device that will be useful in detecting bacteria. A statement given by the institute said that this research done by IIT Guwahati will help in the rapid detection of bacteria, which is quite important not just with respect to health care but also in environmental monitoring applications and anti-bioterrorism measures.

The research team that developed this device was led by Professor Parameswar K. Iyer and Professor Siddhartha S. Ghosh of IIT Guwahati’s Department of Chemistry and Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering respectively. They together created this novel and low-cost sensor that is bio-compatible and is capable of detecting bacteria almost instantaneously. The statement also says that the device does not have the need for cell culture and microbiological assays.

This bacterial diagnostic device is based on the Organic Field Effect Transistor (OFET) and has shown to be capable of detecting 103 CFU mL−1 of bacteria. It can also distinguish between the types of Gram-negative and Gram-positive. This work of the IIT Guwahati researchers has been patented and published in the July 2019 issue of the famous peer-reviewed Journal of Materials Chemistry A, which is of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

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Currently, the detection of bacteria in the body fluids is done in laboratories. The cells derived from the patient are cultured or grown initially so that a proper quantity of the bacterial cells are available to go forward with microbiological analysis. Professor Iyer explained the entire process and said that these diagnostic processes carried out in laboratories are frustratingly time-consuming and it is quite a demerit as time is important in administering treatment. Some newly developed methods such as real-time qPCR can be helpful in detecting bacteria faster than the traditional assay-based techniques but they need trained personnel and expensive apparatus which makes them somewhat restricted. These hand-held rapid detection kits will be extremely useful especially for those who need to monitor their blood sugar or need it for pregnancy detection.

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Professor Ghosh also highlighted the functionalities of the newly formed device. The research team of IIT Guwahati consisted of Dr. Ashish Singh, Dr. Anamika Dey, and Dr. Deepanjalee Dutta. All of them are former PhD scholars from the Centre for Nanotechnology of IIT Guwahati.