Name that Bug

Over a century ago, it was first discovered that many diseases were caused by microbes, which are responsible for numerous infectious diseases. Improvements for microbial identification have been slow in developing, with a constant emergence of new and multi-drug resistant microbes.

Recent funding from Barts and The London Charity has pioneered a radical new approach to facilitate easy microbial identification from patient samples. The new method exploits a technique known as MALDI-TOF. It is commonplace in research and has recently been adapted for medical diagnostics. It is mainly used to analyse complex molecules. A MALDI-TOF spectrometer breaks large biomolecules down into fragments and calculates their weights, from which the chemical composition of each fragment can be deduced. The whole process is simplified and much quicker than conventional approaches. The results require less interpretation and increase ease of diagnosis.

MALDI-TOF has become increasingly popular in Continental Europe, and due to grant funding, Barts Hospital is the first UK hospital to use the new system. The diagnostics lab is now changing its workflows, with MALDI-TOF becoming the routine method of diagnosis that really does deliver.