Infectious diseases are responsible for a quarter of the deaths worldwide. Even for advanced cases of bacteremia, the count of leucocytes and erythrocytes exceeds with many orders of magnitude the count of prokaryotic cells in the infected blood. Using procedures developed in our lab (Annals of Biomedical Engineering 2009 , 37, 1190-1205), we designed bioactive surfaces activated with carbohydrates that target the natural ability of bacteria to adhere, colonize and infect. These bioinspired interfaces allowed us to capture a wide range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative contaminants from blood samples. Amyloid stains allowed us to readily visualize and detect the captured bacterial cells (Journal of Clinical Microbiology 2011 , 49, 2966-2975). The kinetics of their staining provided a means for identification of the captured bacteria (Langmuir 2010 , 26, 9756-9765). The dynamic analysis at a single-cell level revealed unprecedented capabilities for parallel identification of each of the bacterium in a mixture of prokaryotic species.

Bioinspired interfaces for detection of pathogens in blood samples

244th National Meeting (2012)

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