NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Bruker today announced it has licensed intellectual property from the Erasmus Medical Center for the rapid testing of beta-lactamase activity using MALDI-TOF technology.
The method being licensed is compatible with the Bruker MALDI Biotyper system, which uses MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for identifying microorganisms, the company said.
Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase is a mechanism of antibiotic resistance, in which enzymes produced by bacteria attack and cleave the beta-lactam ring in antibiotics. MALDI-TOF MS can provide an exact determination of the molecular weight of a broad range of antibiotics, Bruker said, and its MALDI Biotyper can measure the molecular weights of antibiotics which have been converted into fragments in the presence of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase.
The instrument, Bruker added, can provide shorter time-to-result and potentially better specificity than with traditional biochemical testing.
"While MALDI Biotyper-based microbial identification is already established in many countries, we see significant growth potential in MALDI-based beta-lactamase testing," Wolfgang Pusch, executive vice president of the microbiology business at Bruker Daltonics, said in a statement. "The exclusively licensed IP from Erasmus Medical Center further strengthens our own broad portfolio of intellectual property in the field of mass spectrometry-based microbial analysis ranging from sample preparation, data processing, MALDI-TOF technology, direct analysis from positive blood cultures and beta-lactamase testing, and offers laboratories worldwide another tool in the fight against resistant bacteria."
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.