In 2015, how do scientists test the water supply to see if it’s contaminated with dangerous bacteria (e.g. E. coli) after runoff from heavy storms has overwhelmed the capacity of the treatment plant? How does the QA team in a food-processing plant assure that the latest batch of hot dogs is safe? How do physicians determine whether their patients’ infections are really bacterial rather than viral so they don’t prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily, thus contributing to the emerging “super-bug” crisis − resistant strains of bacteria? Pretty much the same way scientists have been doing it for more than 100 years.
Since the early 20th century, the standard method to detect dangerous bacteria has been to collect a sample, send it out to a lab, and wait 24 to 48 hours to grow a culture and report results. Fluid-Screen aims to change all that so that QA scientists and clinicians have the critical results they need where and when they need them to assure product quality, public health, and safety − or make better, more-informed treatment decisions.
The company has developed a breakthrough hand-held bacterial detection and identification system that provides rapid (~30-minute) results for applications ranging from municipal water quality assurance through agricultural and manufacturing processes to point-of-care diagnostics.
- Monika Weber Chief Executive Officer
- Duane Viazanko Head of Engineering