Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics

Country: Scotland

What infection type does your test focus on? Urinary Tract Infection

What does your test detect? Pathogen(s), Antibiotic Susceptibility Pattern

About the Team: 

The Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics (Fraunhofer CAP) was established in 2012 as the first UK Fraunhofer Research Centre, in collaboration with Fraunhofer IAF, Freiburg and the University of Strathclyde. Fraunhofer CAP is a not-for-profit research and technology organisation that offers professional R&D services to industry as a flexible and practical resource that responds to companies’ needs in the development of photonic technologies. Main areas of current expertise include; novel laser sources including OPO systems, mid-IR, solid-state, Raman, fibre optic and semiconductor disk lasers, CW and Pulsed Laser Sources – including ultrafast systems, sensing and imaging systems, measurement and instrumentation, Integrated fibre photonics, waveguides and plasmonics

We are developing a disposable photonic chip that is capable of detecting both bacteria and their susceptibility to different antibiotics directly in urine samples. This could be used by a point-of-care healthcare practitioner to rapidly help identify whether a patient has a urinary tract infection (UTI) and which antibiotic is most likely to work.