Rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Determination by Fluorescence Lifetime Tracking of Bacterial Metabolism

To combat the rise of antibiotic-resistance in bacteria and the resulting effects on healthcare worldwide, new technologies are needed that can perform rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST). Conventional clinical methods for AST rely on growth-based assays, which typically require long incubation times to obtain quantitative results, representing a major bottleneck in the determination of the optimal antibiotic regimen to treat patients. Here, we demonstrate a rapid AST method based on the metabolic activity measured by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). Using lab strains and clinical isolates of