CLINICAL AND INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS
Following the golden age of microbiology in the early 20th century, this discipline has once again come to the forefront due to the growing resistance developed by certain bacteria to antibiotic therapy, as well as today’s increasingly strict standards to ensure food safety.
OUR SOLUTIONS
As a co-leader in culture-based methods, the bioMérieux product offer, which ranges from manual to automated methods, is the most comprehensive on the market.
CLINICAL AND INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS
Following the golden age of microbiology in the early 20th century, this discipline has once again come to the forefront due to the growing resistance developed by certain bacteria to antibiotic therapy, as well as today’s increasingly strict standards to ensure food safety.
Often, when a patient’s life is in danger, it is crucial to rapidly identify the microorganisms causing an infection, as well as the antimicrobial that will be effective against the bacteria. Microbial controls also represent a major challenge to the agri-food industry to ensure consumer safety.
Research and Development focuses on technologies that are likely to reduce the time to results:
- The development of new reagents to broaden the range of bacteria that are likely to be detected by our systems, in particular:
- in the production environment of the agri-food sector.
- in response to the epidemiology of bacterial resistance.
- The development of tests to analyze bacteria’s susceptibility to new antibiotics being launched by pharmaceutical companies.
- The development of new culture media.
Continuous improvement to the performance of our culture media
By listening to our customers, we are able to adapt the presentation of our culture media in line with their conditions of use. To provide greater flexibility of utilization, we have developed culture media that can be stored at room temperature: for example, for the environmental control of air and surfaces in the pharmaceutical industry, we offer culture media that retain their high level of microbiological performance without requiring storage in cold rooms.
bioMérieux is a pioneer in the development of chromogenic culture media that ensure the direct, reliable and rapid isolation of bacteria. Among other uses, these media are designed to screen patients hosting these multi-resistant bacteria that cause nosocomial infections. Recently, bioMérieux launched tests that screen for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Enterococci and enterobacteria producing extended-spectrum beta-lactamase.
Chromogenic media: non-colored substrates are incorporated into the agar medium. These substrates are absorbed by a bacterial species and produce a colored substance (metabolite) characteristic of these bacteria. The colored metabolite remains in the bacterial cells, which leads to the production of colored colonies of bacteria that can be seen by the naked eye.
Epidemiology of bacterial resistance
We are constantly adding to our collection of over 30,000 bacterial strains, in particular by working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and reference laboratories all over the world.
Because our Research and Development teams are in contact with hospital physicians and researchers worldwide, they can monitor the emergence and progression of bacterial resistance. This allows them to react quickly when, to protect public health, it becomes necessary to detect new types of bacterial resistance. bioMérieux positions itself as a major player in the fight against healthcare-associated infections so that we can give clinicians the right information at the right time, thereby empowering clinical decisions.
OUR SOLUTIONS
As a co-leader in culture-based methods, the bioMérieux product offer, which ranges from manual to automated methods, is the most comprehensive on the market:
- culture media (Petri dishes, tubes, and bottles),
- the automated VITEK® system for identifying bacteria and testing their susceptibility to antibiotics (antibiogram),
- BACT/ALERT® for the culture and detection of bacteria in the bloodstream,
- TEMPO® for bacterial detection and enumeration, serving the agri-food industry