The AIT Molecular Diagnostics Group, Center for Health and Bioresources, together with partners from Italy and Croatia, is developing a powerful tool that will provide a highly sensitive, rapid and cost-effective detection method for infectious bacteria.
Countless species of bacteria live around us, the vast majority of which are harmless or even beneficial to humans. However, some bacteria, such as salmonella, coli bacteria or the pathogens that cause cholera, can cause diseases. Therefore, every effort must be made to ensure that water, beverages or food, for example, are free of such pathogenic germs. Conventional methods are either slow, or expensive, complex and not sensitive enough. Ivan Barisic's AIT research group has a better solution in mind: their goal is to develop a rapid, highly sensitive and at the same time cheap detection method, building on the EU project MARA. Now, in the follow-up project MARILIA, which is funded with around two million euros as part of the EU's Horizon 2020 research programme, the prototype of a test method is being developed that can subsequently be used directly for the analysis of water and other beverages.
Building complex biomolecules in the computer
The novel detection method is based on recombinant proteins linked to DNA strands: As soon as pathogenic bacteria are detected, these molecules change their structure - and this can be detected by simple measurements. "The complicated molecules built for this purpose are too complex to build without help from computers, for this we developed the CATANA system as part of the MARILIA project" says Ivan Barisic project leader from AIT's Molecular Diagnostics group "the software for three-dimensional modelling and manipulation of complex biomolecules visualises them in real time down to the atomic level and was recently presented in the renowned journal Nucleic Acids Research." Among many user-friendly features, the web-based open-source solution has the AI-based tool "AlphaFold", which predicts the exact three-dimensional structure of a protein based on the amino acid sequence with unprecedented quality. This method was named "breakthrough of the year 2021" by the scientific journal "Science".
From research to the market
In the MARILIA project itself, CATANA is already providing valuable services to optimise the designed detection method for pathogenic bacteria and to further develop it into a practical application for the examination of water and beverages. Subsequently, the researchers envisage extending the scope of the new method to food, agriculture and the health sector. The system is to be further developed into a commercially viable application and offered on the market by a spin-off company, for example to support the development of medicines.
More information (German): https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20220713_OTS0052/software-paket-catana-berechnet-exakte-struktur-von-biomolekuelen