For society, better control of microorganisms such as colibacteria can save many people and animals from getting sick and thus save health costs.
With this InnoBooster project, the goal is to develop a sensor technology that allows bacterial development to be controlled directly on the production lines. Focus is on biotech, pharmaceutical and food companies where biological safety in their large-scale production is essential to avoid downtime and discarded products.
At laboratory level, IntuBio has developed a method that quickly detects and characterizes bacteria growth. The solution is patented and consists of a 3D optical scanning instrument, oCelloScope, suitable for most industrial applications. The results are high-resolution images that are analyzed through advanced image analysis, where data is presented in an easily accessible way. The unique feature of the technology is that it enables visualization of very low bacterial concentrations. It allows to capture the important early stages of microbial growth that cannot be detected by conventional optical density measurements.
It is today standard, that bacterial samples are sent today to a laboratory for cultivation for 2- 3 days before there is sufficient bacterial growth for it to be quantified and described. At the same time, the process is manual, which increases the risk of sample contamination and other errors. Here Intubio works with an automated process and a detection time of 1-3 hours. This makes it possible to respond much more quickly to changes in the specific production processes. The result is increased productivity, quality of end products and better utilization of resources such as water and energy.