Sixth Wave Innovations Inc. announced that its patent pending Accelerated Molecularly Imprinted Polymer technology has achieved a new performance milestone for the detection of E. Coli bacteria. The purpose of this project is to develop a multiplexed automated device that can quickly diagnosis Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) at point of care. This will drastically reduce diagnostic time, cost, and time to treatment, while increasing the probability of successful treatment. Escherichia coli is one of the most frequent causes of many common bacterial infections, including cholecystitis, bacteremia, cholangitis, urinary tract infection (UTI), and traveler's diarrhea, and other clinical infections such as neonatal meningitis and pneumonia. In collaboration with Dr. Pouya Razai at York University, the team has developed a microfluidic device with sensitivity down to 1,000 bacteria/mL. The prototype can achieve this limit of detection in as little as 5 minutes with 0.25 mL of sample. This is a significant advancement over conventional techniques that require growing bacteria in samples for 24 to 48 hours, or compared to other experimental technologies
with much higher detection limits at 100,000 bacteria/mL detected that require 30 minutes or more. The current prototype uses a fluorescent detection mechanism and a microfluidics device. The next phase of the research is to initiate specificity experiments against other bacteria and miniaturize the analyzer unit of the device. The research on this project is fully funded for the next 2 years by the NSERC grant awarded to the team and announced on April 6, 2022.