Sensors to detect MRSA?

Link: Medicine Weekly.

A research team from Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) is working on a project using an embedded network of sensors that could result in a method of tracking biohazards in hospitals and helping eradicate infections such as MRSA. These network-embedded systems are similar to small computers or microprocessors that are part of everyday devices, including items for medical use, in phones, cars, or in security devices such as swipe cards used to open doors. While embedded technology has been in use for 30 years, the next stage of development is to network them together, explained lead researcher Dr Dirk Pesch. “If we had technology to detect MRSA, for example, we could place little sensors around hospitals to monitor the presence of a biohazard and alert it back to the ‘internet’ or network. You could then check if this hospital is clean in terms of biohazards,” he explained.