Study for the Integration of a Measuring System to an Automated Platform for Monitoring the Growth of Bacterial Cultures

As bacterial infections are still a risk for human health, the market offers different systems able to detect bacterial growth in biological samples. One of them is the WASPLab automated platform, commercialized by COPAN Italia S.p.A., which combines growth detection capabilities with high levels of automation and connectivity, in compliance with Industry 4.0 principles. In this paper, we describe a study carried out on a system, whose operation relies on impedance measurements, to evaluate the possibility of its integration to the WASPLab. This integration would provide a larger quantity of data about bacterial growth to the user and would optimize analysis process. By using this system, we observed the growth of S. aureus in Petri dishes, while they were directly inside one of the WASPLab incubators. System provided enough information to successfully detect bacterial growth with detection time equal to three, four and a half, and six hours when initial pathogen concentration was in the order of 4.5... 108 CFU ml, \ 4.5... 107 CFU ml, and 4.5... 106 CFU/ml, respectively. Results highlight that the measuring system could work together with the WASPLab, enhancing its monitoring performances, connectivity, and flexibility. This contributes to the realization of an architecture compliant with the model of the Factory of the Future.