Posted January 12, 2012 Atlanta, GA Research News and
Publications Researchers from the Georgia Institute of
Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) have developed a new laboratory test that can rapidly
identify the bacterium responsible for staph infections. This
new test takes advantage of unique isotopic labeling combined
with specific bacteriophage amplification to rapidly identify
Staphylococcus aureus. Quickly and accurately detecting
infections caused by S. aureus is critical because the
pathogenic bacterium causes a broad spectrum of infections,
ranging from acute to chronic disease, which need to be treated
in a prompt manner with the correct antibiotic. The test uses
mass spectrometry to quantify the number of S. aureus organisms
in a large number of samples in just a few hours, compared to a
day or two for culturing techniques typically used to detect
this bacterium. “Our method for detecting staph infections using
mass spectrometry will be valuable in a variety of situa