The Evolution of Rapid Microbiology Testing
Rapid microbiology testing is done for the faster identification of microbial risks, monitoring critical control points in real time, contribution for the improvement, manufacturing processes, enhancing safety profile of products and also decreases overall costs of quality programs. This technique is widely used in for the research activity, drug development and others. It ensure testing in rapid and accurate manners at reasonable costs. The ideal test should achieve detection of certain types of microorganisms that are undetected by the pharmacopoeia-defined sterility tests and its accuracy should be confirmed by regulatory authorities.
All rapid microbiology tests require some level of enrichment of target pathogens or surrogate molecules, and all tests must somehow match practical sample size and pathogen concentration with the test’s physical and detection capabilities.
A microbial tests with false positive results due to noise caused by detection principle, measurement device, or non-biologic positive substance, imposes huge industrial challenges. In this review, we discuss the rapid microbial tests classified according to various systems for detection of microorganisms and their application, and then introduce some commercial applications of existing devices for detection of microorganisms and provide details of microbial test features, and compare the purposes of the microbial tests.
Recently advances in miniaturization and automation have been utilized to rapidly decrease the time to result for microbiology testing in the clinic. These advances have been made due to the limitations of conventional culture-based microbiology methods, including agar plate and micro broth dilution, which have long turnaround times and require physicians to treat patients empirically with antibiotics before test results are available. Currently, there exist similar limitations in pharmaceutical sterility and bio burden testing, where the long turnaround times associated with standard microbiology testing drive costly inefficiencies in workflows.
Some Companies Profiles in Rapid Microbiology Testing
1. Abbott
2. Thermo-Fisher Scientific Inc.
3. Siemens Healthcare GmbH
4. Quidel Corporation
5. Sysmex
6. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd
7. BD
8. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.
9. bioMĂ©rieux SA
10. Merck KGaA
Hence, the rapid microbiology testing industry is anticipated to grow in forthcoming years owing to rise in the number of research activities, rise in the number of infection diseases, increase in the technological advancements.