A Turkish researcher at the University of Toronto designed a diagnostic microchip to swiftly determine antibiotic-resistant bacteria and what particular viruses would destroy them.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Dr. Enver Gürhan Kılınç said that the microchip they had designed was making "significant contributions" to treatments by reducing overall costs and saving a lot of time.
Kılınç said the small chip reduced the testing time from at least two days to 15 minutes, enabling doctors to treat bacterial infections much faster than before.
The microchip can also be used in the treatment of phage, also known as bacteriophage, which uses bacterial viruses to treat bacterial infections and is accepted as an alternative to antibiotics.
"Our research at the University of Toronto started in 2015. As a result of our research, we've reduced the cost of testing to under one [Canadian] dollar, whereas it used to cost 20 to 30 [Canadian] dollars before. We've also drastically reduced the testing time to 15 minutes from at least two days," he said.