{"id":3162,"date":"2016-11-22T09:27:08","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T09:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2016-11-22T09:27:08","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T09:27:08","slug":"slic-device-beats-bugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/slic-device-beats-bugs\/","title":{"rendered":"SLIC device beats bugs"},"content":{"rendered":"

International award for infection detection invention to be presented at Royal Society<\/em><\/p>\n

Medical scientists at the University of St Andrews have won a prestigious international award for a breakthrough that could help the fight against antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n

The UN has identified antibiotic resistant bacteria as a major threat to global health – with an estimated $50 trillion price tag for health care if nothing is done about it.<\/p>\n

The Orbital Diagnostics team at St Andrews have developed a device – the Scattered Light Integrated Collector (SLIC) – to reduce the time taken to test bacteria for resistance.\u00a0 Current testing frequently takes 24 hours to produce a result, the SLIC team can produce a similar result in around 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

The new tool aims to help patients get the right treatment faster.\u00a0 This reduces risk of antibiotic resistance by helping ensure bacteria are not exposed to antibiotics unnecessarily.<\/p>\n

At an award ceremony held in London at the Royal Society, members of the St Andrews team were presented with a prestigious Longitude Prize Discovery Award.<\/p>\n

The prize will help the team develop a device that can challenge for the coveted Longitude Prize, a challenge with a \u00a310 million prize fund to reward a point of care diagnostic test that helps solve the global problem of bacterial antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n

Team leader Professor Stephen Gillespie, Sir James Black Professor of Medicine at St Andrews, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur very sensitive device detects bacteria in very small numbers. This means when they grow in the presence of antibiotics, we can show that quickly.\u00a0 Conventional tests take up to 24 hours \u2013 for some bugs we can now do the same job in less than 20 minutes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment this promising test can only be used in the laboratory.\u00a0 The challenge is to turn it into a test that can be used in a doctor\u2019s surgery or a pharmacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Robert Hammond, co-inventor and senior scientist said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aim to develop SLIC to enable a person with a suspected urinary [tract] infection to give a sample to a practice nurse or pharmacist – then within two hours be given an antibiotic prescription knowing that the infecting bacteria are susceptible.\u00a0 This will be faster and better for the individual.\u00a0 It will mean that fewer unnecessary prescriptions will be issued, reducing chances that bugs will develop resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Orbital Diagnostics team is supported by Scottish Enterprise to form a company that will take the SLIC device to market.<\/p>\n

Eleanor Mitchell, High Growth Ventures Director at Scottish Enterprise said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis prestigious award is fantastic recognition of Orbital Diagnostics\u2019 strong progress in developing the SLIC device which has significant global market potential.\u00a0 Scottish Enterprise is delighted to be supporting the team to commercialise this emerging technology which exemplifies the strength of innovation in Scotland\u2019s healthcare sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"20161121_200927-k1024\"<\/p>\n

All the Longitude Prize Discovery Award winners can be found at the link below.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/longitudeprize.org\/blog-post\/winners-discovery-awards<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Notes to Editors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor Stephen Gillespie <\/strong>leads the infection group at the University of St Andrews. A practicing clinical microbiologist, he is <\/strong>one of the Chief Investigators of the\u00a0PanACEA<\/a>\u00a0consortium, and focuses on various aspects of tuberculosis drug development. \u00a0His infection group studies molecular mechanisms of resistance and model systems to measure the fitness deficits found in resistant strains and investigates respiratory pathogens.<\/p>\n

More information about the\u00a0 Longitude Prize Discovery Awards can be found here: https:\/\/longitudeprize.org\/discoveryawards<\/a><\/p>\n

Photographs of the team are available. Professor Gillespie is available for interview. Contact Communications Office on 01334 467310 or proffice@st-andrews.ac.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Issued by the University of St Andrews Communications Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical scientists at the University of St Andrews have won a prestigious international award for a breakthrough that could help the fight against antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":3164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[88,116,381,679,829,917,1002,1003,1024,1049],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorised","tag-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria","tag-bacteria","tag-dr-robert-hammond","tag-longitude-prize-discovery-award","tag-orbital-diagnostics-team","tag-prof-stephen-gillespie","tag-scale","tag-scattered-light-integrated-collector","tag-scottish-enterprise","tag-slic"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 18:49:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicine.st-andrews.ac.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}