Penelope's Interview & Publication

Development and evaluation of a nanopore 16S rRNA gene sequencing service for same day targeted treatment of bacterial respiratory infection in the intensive care unit

Journal of Infection – https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.06.014

What inspired your research and what did it cover?

Our research covered same-day diagnostics for detecting bacteria in patients with severe respiratory failure in our intensive care unit. We used a new technology from Oxford Nanopore Technologies that allowed us to get the bacterial 16S DNA and sequence it on the same day. This put us in the unusual position of giving a same-day diagnosis for bacterial infection in these patients.

Which aspect(s) of your research work are you particularly excited about?

The two things I am most excited about from the research that we carried out is that we have proven that this technology can be used for same-day diagnosis. The other thing that we have done is we have managed to demonstrate its accuracy: there was always a question about the accuracy of the sequencing method, and we have shown it is accurate enough.

Looking at the potential of your findings, what difference can they make?

The difference is towards patient management but also antimicrobial stewardship. Patients will get an earlier diagnosis, which will often decrease their stay duration because they can receive more appropriate treatment earlier. In terms of antimicrobial stewardship, we are running out of antibiotics that can be used to treat patients with bacterial infections. If we can keep using the narrow spectrum antibiotics earlier, we can save the really useful broad-spectrum antibiotics for when there really is a need, and this technology will allow us to do that.