Optical small animal imaging unit for quantification of bacterial infections

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bacterial infections impose a costly health burden worldwide which is compounded by the alarming increase of multi-drug resistant bacteria, and many of these infections are in the urogenital tract. Urogenital tract infections (UTI) afflict mor than 250 million adults and children worldwide each year. However, pharmaceutical companies tasked with developing the next class of antibiotics do not have the tools to monitor in vivo bacterial organ burden quantitatively and longitudinally in the same small animal without harvesting organs. Consequently, the life cycle of pathogenic bacteria and the efficacy of novel antibiotics cannot be studied in real-time. Luminescent bacteria are commonly used as a tool for optical imaging of in vivo bacterial infections in small animals, however, light is strongly attenuated by tissue and the measured signal is dependent on (i) the spatial location of bacteria, (ii) the heterogeneous optical tissue properties, and (iii) the animal's siz