Application:
- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) remains a major healthcare challenge due to its extensive antibiotic resistance and prevalence in both hospital and community settings.
- Effective management requires rapid and highly selective identification of MRSA, together with accurate localization of infection sites.
- Current diagnostic approaches can be slow, indirect or insufficiently specific, limiting the ability to rapidly guide treatment.
Our Innovation
- A peptide-based diagnostic platform designed to selectively recognize MRSA and support both biosensing and infection imaging.
- Highly selective peptide probes were identified against the MRSA cell surface and demonstrated minimal non-specific binding in multiple experimental settings.
- The peptides can serve as the recognition element of an electrochemical biosensor, enabling sensitive and selective detection of MRSA.
- When fluorescently labeled, the probes selectively accumulated at MRSA infection sites in an in vivo infection model, enabling spatial visualization of infection.
- The platform may also provide a foundation for future theranostic approaches, combining pathogen localization with site-directed antimicrobial delivery.
Advantages
- High selectivity for MRSA
- Low non-specific binding
- Non expensive platform
- Compatible with electrochemical biosensing
- Enables in vivo localization and imaging of infection sites
- Sustained imaging signal for more than 72 hours in the reported animal model
- Minimal background signal in non-target tissues
- Peptide probes showed no cytotoxic or antimicrobial activity, supporting their use as diagnostic agents
- Potential to evolve into a broader pathogen-detection and theranostic platform
Commercial Opportunity
- The technology offers a new approach for developing rapid MRSA diagnostics and infection-localization tools, with potential applications in biosensors, molecular imaging and future targeted treatment strategies.
- It may be particularly relevant to diagnostic, biomedical and pharmaceutical companies developing infectious-disease diagnostics, biosensor technologies, infection imaging or targeted antimicrobial solutions.
- We are seeking collaboration with diagnostic, biomedical and pharmaceutical companies, investors and entrepreneurs interested in advancing the platform toward commercial applications.
