The Astratus rapid AST platform aims to answer the >£3.6 billion challenge to revolutionise the outdated urine microbiology laboratory testing methods applied across human and veterinary clinical medicine as well as therapeutic research.
Astratus Limited is a recent University of Reading spin out company modernising traditional microbiology laboratory methods. The Astratus rapid, accurate, high throughput laboratory platform significantly reduces time to result and is less labour intensive. When managing urinary tract infection (UTI), the Astratus technology enables the right treatment to be prescribed to the right patient playing a vital role in antimicrobial stewardship and helping tackle antimicrobial resistance. Astratus is a One Health company serving human, veterinary and research markets offering a novel microcapillary “dip and test” cassette and instrument reader platform for antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) either direct from urine or from bacterial isolates. The rapid AST platform provides digital AST results direct from urine in <6 hours, instead of several days, performs identically to clinical reference standard methodology and can be easily scaled to increase throughput. At the core of the innovation is two existing laboratory methods (i) metabolic dye to visualise bacterial growth (ii) conducting broth microdilution. Combining these methods with the unique patented properties of the microcapillary film and time lapse imaging delivers rapid AST. As well as providing a platform for rapid AST, the technology could be used by researchers and companies developing new antimicrobials, investigating biofilms or novel therapies including phage therapies.