New device analyses how biofilms respond to antibiotics to help personalise treatment for individual patients
An estimated 60–80% of microbial infections in humans are associated with biofilms: communities of microorganisms that adhere to a surface and are surrounded by a viscous matrix that protects them from the immune system and antibiotics.
Now, a team at the University of Barcelona (UB) has developed a device that simplifies the cultivation and analysis of these bacterial communities and enables researchers to assess their response to antibiotics, potentially helping clinicians make more precise, personalised treatment decisions.
“XpertBiofilm makes it possible to grow and analyse biofilms directly from patient samples and assess their response to antibiotics in a straightforward way. This could enable better characterisation of biofilm-associated infections and help select more appropriate treatments for each patient,” explains Eduard Torrents, Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona and Group Leader at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), who is leading the development of this technology alongside Núria Blanco-Cabra, Assistant Professor at the UB and researcher at IBEC.
The possibility of personalising treatment could also help address one of today’s major healthcare challenges: antibiotic resistance. “Understanding how each biofilm responds could reduce the use of ineffective drugs and encourage more rational antibiotic use, which is particularly important in the context of the global rise in antimicrobial resistance,” the researchers emphasise.
A simpler, more cost-effective method for hospital laboratories
Despite the high prevalence of biofilm-associated infections, the antibiotic susceptibility testing methods commonly used in hospitals focus on bacteria growing freely. Existing devices for studying biofilms tend to be complex, require specialised personnel and involve lengthy procedures, making them difficult to incorporate into routine clinical practice.
“This limitation can lead to the selection of ineffective treatments, as bacteria within a biofilm may exhibit different antibiotic susceptibility profiles from those growing in a planktonic state. This can contribute to prolonged infections, increased healthcare costs and poorer clinical outcomes for patients,” the researchers point out.
To address this challenge, the new device simplifies biofilm cultivation and analysis, eliminating the need for complex imaging systems and highly specialised technical staff. “These features could facilitate its adoption in hospital laboratories to assess the antimicrobial susceptibility of biofilms,” they add.
The device consists of a sealed chamber containing a circular disc on which the biofilm grows, together with an inlet port through which the antibiotic is administered. The system reproduces conditions that favour the formation of these bacterial communities. The disc can then be removed to analyse the biofilm and assess its susceptibility to antibiotics without the need for specialised equipment.
From cystic fibrosis to other chronic infections
The device has already been validated using sputum samples from people with cystic fibrosis, a chronic, hereditary and degenerative disease that primarily affects the lungs and digestive system. Among its most serious complications are persistent respiratory infections associated with biofilm formation.
In the proof-of-concept study, bacterial communities grown from these samples responded to antibiotics to which they were clinically susceptible. Conversely, no significant effect was observed with drugs to which they were resistant, in accordance with the susceptibility profile of each sample.
“These results demonstrate the device’s ability to reproduce the patient-specific antibiotic response of biofilms in a clinically relevant context,” the researchers explain.
XpertBiofilm is designed to analyse biofilms from clinical samples obtained directly from patients with different types of infections. “It could therefore have applications in other chronic conditions associated with these bacterial communities, such as medical device-associated infections (for example, those involving prostheses), chronic wounds or persistent lung infections,” they note.
The team’s aim is to expand clinical validation to include more samples and other types of biofilm-associated infections. At the same time, the researchers are working to optimise the technology and develop a scalable version that can be easily integrated into clinical laboratory workflows.