🧫 They win the $10 million Longitude Prize – combating superbugs

• Swedish-Japenese Sysmex Astrego has won the Longitude Prize of $10 million for its rapid test of bacterial infections.
• The test reduces the time to determine the correct antibiotic from three days to less than 45 minutes.
• The development is based on research at Uppsala University and can be used directly at the first doctor's visit.

A prestigious prize

The Longitude Prize is a British innovation prize first offered in 1714 to solve the problem of measuring longitude at sea. John Harrison won at that time for his chronometer, which could determine a ship's exact position in relation to the celestial bodies.

Three hundred years later, in 2014, the prize was offered again, this time for the rapid detection of antimicrobial resistance, one of today’s major global health challenges. The winner is Sysmex Astrego, a company founded in 2017 as a spin-off from Uppsala University.

The prize-winning instrument will be exhibited in the museum alongside John Harrison's chronometer and Alexander Fleming's penicillin mold from 1928.

Refined tools

Elf's research group has long used microscopy and microfluidics to study bacteria. The methods were further developed in 2015 when doctoral student Özden Baltekin began studying growth variations between individual bacterial cells and the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Significant impact

The first test, which is for urinary tract infection, radically changes the healthcare situation. After just 15 minutes, the test shows whether it is a bacterial infection and in less than 45 minutes, which type of antibiotics can be used. Previous tests for antibiotic sensitivity needed to be analyzed in hospital laboratories with a waiting time of 2-3 days.

"The unique factor is that the test can be done in a primary care clinic, so that the right antibiotics are chosen at the first meeting with a doctor or nurse. By using the test, it is therefore possible to reintroduce antibiotics that have been abandoned due to a high level of resistance in the population but are still effective, provided you can find out which patients do not have resistant bacteria," explains Elf.

Speed crucial

One of the prize committee's criteria was that medical staff should be able to perform the test before prescribing antibiotics for the first time.

"We had refined the tools and were discussing with Dan Andersson, professor of medical bacteriology, how we could use the technology in diagnostics. Dan mentioned the Longitude Prize and the importance of a rapid test became obvious. We immediately investigated how quickly we could determine if the bacteria in the lab responded to antibiotic treatment and it took just a few minutes."

Prize competitions accelerate innovation

Prize competitions are a smart way to foster innovation. They accelerate innovation by both crowdsourcing ideas and funding. In many prize competitions, the total investment made by all teams is often significantly greater than the prize amount. It is not uncommon for it to be 10 or 20 times larger.

Even more important is the diversity of ideas. In "normal" innovation, it is usually those who work within a field who deal with it, but in a competition, others get the chance to test their ideas.

💡 Optimist’s Edge: Prize competitions accelerate innovation

💡 Prize competitions accelerate innovation by both crowdsourcing ideas and financing.

Warp NewsMathias Sundin

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