Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

A low cost gas phase analysis system for the diagnosis of bacterial infection

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Agbroko, Samuel O. (2019) A low cost gas phase analysis system for the diagnosis of bacterial infection. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP_Theses_Agbroko_2019.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (74Mb) | Preview
Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3438393~S15

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Drug resistance is becoming a major concern in both the western world and in developing countries. The over use of common anti-bacterial drugs has resulted in a plethora of multi-drug resistant diseases and an ever reducing number of effective treatments - and is now of major concern to the UK government. One of the major reasons behind this is the difficulty in identifying bacterial infections from viral infections, especially in primary care where patients have an expectation of receiving medication. For most viral conditions, there is no effective treatment and the body fights off the disease, thus prescribing anti-bacterial drugs simply results in the proliferation of drugs within the community - increasing the rate of drug resistance. Increasing drug resistance contributed to the rise of superbugs (drug resistant bacteria) which are expected to kill an about 10 million people a year worldwide by the year 2050 and could result to an economic loss of $63 trillion. Increasing drug resistance contributed to the rise of superbugs (drug resistant bacteria) which are expected to kill an about 10 million people a year worldwide by the year 2050 and could result to an economic loss of $63 trillion. Therefore, there is a strong medical and economic need to develop tools that can diagnose bacterial diseases from viral infections, focused towards primary care.

One means of achieving this is through the detection of gas-phase biomarkers IX of disease. It is well known that the metabolic activity of bacteria is significantly different from its host. Many studies have shown that it is possible to detect a bacterial infection, identify the strain and its current life-cycle stage simply by measuring bacterial metabolic emissions. In addition, the human body's response to a bacterial infection is significantly different from a viral infection the human body's response to a bacterial infection is significantly different from a viral infection, allowing human stress markers to also be used for differentiating these conditions. Thus, there is evidence that these bio-markers exist and could be detected.

However, a major limiting factor inhibiting the wide-spread deployment of this concept is the unit cost of the analytical instrumentation required for gas analysis. Currently, the main preferred methods are GCMS (gas chromatography/mass spectrometry), TOF-MS (time of flight - MS) and SIFT-MS (selective ion flow tube - MS). Though excellent at undertaking this role, the typical unit cost of these instruments is in excess of $100k, making them out of reach of current GP budgets. Therefore, what is required is a low-cost, portable instrument that can detect bacterial infections from viral infections and be applicable to primary care.

Item Type: Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects: Q Science > QR Microbiology
T Technology > TP Chemical technology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Drug resistance in microorganisms, Bacterial diseases -- Diagnosis, Biochemical markers -- Diagnostic use
Official Date: May 2019
Dates:
DateEvent
May 2019UNSPECIFIED
Institution: University of Warwick
Theses Department: School of Engineering
Thesis Type: PhD
Publication Status: Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: Covington, James A., 1973-
Format of File: pdf
Extent: xxiii, 246 leaves : illustrations, charts
Language: eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us