(1236-A) Automation of microbial environmental monitoring

Abstract: To ensure consumer protection, patient safety, or to determine the general microbiological condition of substances, facilities, or rooms, regular monitoring of microbial indicator parameters is required by law in most countries. Depending on the risk potential of the respective facility or the corresponding microorganism, this can result in a large number of samples that have to be examined in accredited laboratories. While the parameters may vary, the individual test procedures are usually consistent and do not change much. Despite the situation described above, which predestines microbial environmental monitoring for a high degree of automation, the reality in most practising laboratories in this field is different. Most of the work is still done manually, from sample preparation to culturing to data and metadata documentation, which often consists of a series of data transfers from paper-based spreadsheets to digitally stored reports. This makes it difficult to capture large data sets with multiple parameters and to track individual samples. The emerging shortage of trained staff, combined with the growing number of parameters to be tested, exacerbates the problem. To counteract this, the Chair of Biochemical Engineering at the Technical University of Dresden is
continuously developing new concepts and methods for the automation of microbial testing and monitoring of environmental and clinical samples and is building automated devices at the prototype level. As most processes of microbial monitoring have a common scheme and are performed with standardized materials, we have developed an automation platform that is capable of performing a variety of such analyses. The functionality of the platform is defined by individual processing devices that can be easily integrated or exchanged. The transport of samples from a storage location to the individual processing stations and the cultivation area is handled autonomously by the platform and
can be defined according to the user's needs. Samples are stored in magazines that are transported via a rail system that can be extended for sample transfer across the entire laboratory space. The focus of the platform is currently on the microbial analysis of drinking water. For this purpose, we have developed processing equipment for sample concentration and plating on prefilled agar plates, as well
as an image acquisition station for optical analysis of microbial colonies. Cultivation takes place in an incubator that can be automatically loaded by the system. In further developments, we intend to extend our technology into a non-target cultivation and screening platform for colony-forming microorganisms, potentially for screening antibiotic-producing soil bacteria