Bacterial Eavesdropping for Fast Antibiotic Susceptibility Testingbroad
BE FAST · Horizon Europe grant · 2023-11-01–2026-10-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call HORIZON-EIC-2023-TRANSITION-01 · scheme HORIZON-EIC · topic HORIZON-EIC-2023-TRANSITIONOPEN-01. CORDIS record →
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.
Beneficiaries (1)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SOUNDCELL B.V. | NL | coordinator | €2,499,144 | Yes |
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