Instead of growth they measure activity to identify bacteria faster.
The University of Waterloo claims to know how to speed up the process to identify and determine the most efective antibiotics to use for a bacterial infection.
Instead of waiting 24 to 48 hours for something to grow they measure cellular activity. They record their respiration!
Cool!
Press release here.
RapidLabs is the company who is selling this. And on their website they mention the following,
The RapidLabs antibiotic susceptibility and identification testing application can provide results in less than 30 minutes from a clinical isolate, which is much less than current technology, which generate results somewhere between 4 and 72 hours. Independent studies have shown that the administration of the correct drug to a patient five hours sooner, based on the optimization of existing AST techniques, has the potential to save a 500-bed US hospital over $4 million annually.
30 min! Cool!
RapidLabs website here.