Development of effective vaccines and therapies for tuberculosis are hindered by the lengthy 1-2 months time to culture the causative agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Rapid detection of mycobacteria could provide real-time feedback on drug development and evaluation.
In collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Cirillo and with support from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, we have integrated intravital fiber-optic microendoscopy with whole-body fluorescence imaging to enhance sensitivity to fluorescent bacteria. Using a novel reporter enzyme fluorescence technology that is specific to the BlaC beta-lactamase enzyme in M. tuberculosis, we are able to achieve a level of detection of 100 colony forming units, a 100x increase in sensitivity in comparison with epi-illumination.