Recent Advances in the Race to Design a Rapid Diagnostic Test for Antimicrobial Resistance

Even with advances in antibiotic therapies, bacterial infections persistently plague society and have amounted to one of the most prevalent issues in healthcare today. Moreover, the improper and excessive administration of antibiotics has led to resistance of many pathogens to prescribed therapies, rendering such antibiotics ineffective against infections. While the identification and detection of bacteria in a patient's sample is critical for point-of-care diagnostics and in a clinical setting, the consequent determination of the correct antibiotic for a patient-tailored therapy is equally crucial. As a result, many recent research efforts have been focused on the development of sensors and systems that correctly guide a physician to the best antibiotic to prescribe for an infection, which can in turn, significantly reduce the instances of antibiotic resistance and the evolution of bacteria "superbugs." This review details the advantages and shortcomings of the recent advances (focusing from 2016 and onward) made in the developments of antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) measurements. Detection of antibiotic resistance by genomic AST techniques relies on the prediction of antibiotic resistance via extracted bacterial DNA content, while phenotypic determinations typically track physiological changes in cells and/or populations exposed to antibiotics. Regardless of the method used for AST, factors such as cost, scalability, and assay time need to be weighed into their design.