Press
22 September 2021

Traditional plate counts for the enumeration of bacteria are cumbersome and labor-intensive. For some types of bacteria, it can take up to weeks before colonies appear on an agar plate. This results in costly waiting times before produced products can be released and also frustration if the wrong sample dilution was used when preparing the agar plates. Moreover, it is estimated that only less than 2% of all environmental bacteria can be grown in the lab.

Scientists and QC personnel are in dire need of accurate, culture-independent, fast, easy-to-use, and affordable solutions for enumerating bacteria. Our team at SBT Instruments has now made such a solution, BactoBox. BactoBox employs a new approach to bacterial counting called impedance flow cytometry. We use a microfluidic flow cell to detect and count bacteria in samples based on the electrical properties of the bacteria. It has all the accuracy advantages known from fluorescence flow cytometry but it is much more simple to operate and also a lot cheaper both in the acquisition and operating costs. This is a huge gamechanger for laboratory research and a big relief for many biotech, medical, and pharmaceutical companies.

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