Liquid-based microbiology: its vital role in automating the modern laboratory

In recent years, escalating workloads (largely due to the increase in hospital-acquired infection and the implementation of national screening programmes) and limited staffing resources have put enormous pressure on hospital microbiology laboratories. This, together with the growing requirement for standardisation in laboratory processes, has driven the development of automation in many areas of the laboratory. However, the diverse range of specimen types that are common to microbiological investigations has, in the past, presented an enormous challenge to the progress of automation in downstream processing of samples. A large proportion of microbiology specimens are collected on swabs, which traditionally have been streaked directly on culture plates. Other specimens, such as urine, faeces and sputum, have been collected in a variety of containers of different shape and size.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is helping to overcome this pre-analytical challenge by making available a wide range of sample collection, transportation and preservation products that transfer non-liquid specimens into a liquid phase and allow the vast majority of specimens to be transported to the laboratory in standardised containers. This includes a range of Thermo Scientific Sterilin urine tubes as well as Copan swabs, for which Thermo Fisher is the exclusive distributor in the UK. Such liquid-based microbiology and standardisation is improving efficiency in specimen processing and has opened the way to the development of automated sample processing platforms.

Transforming swab specimens
The invention of the flocked swab (by Copan Italia) was a major breakthrough in the development of automation in microbiology, providing specimens in a liquid phase, which is ideal for use with most automated plating and streaking platforms such as the Copan WASP (Walk-Away Specimen Processor).