A Finnish germ researcher is working on a new algorithm to understand the genes of resistant hospital bacteria. The aim is to warn before hazardous hospital epidemics erupt.
– We will use mathematical models and statistical methods to understand why and how the deadly, resistant hospital bacteria occur and spread, says Professor Jukka Coranda at the new center of innovation, Big Insight, by the University of Oslo (UiO) to Apollo.
Each genome in each bacterium consists of several billion building blocks, and increasing numbers of variations within the resistant hospital bacteria are discovered every year.
This means that the data which will be analyzed when researchers try to understand development patterns in resistant bacteria, is increasing.
The old algorithms would use 330 years to go through the data on a PC, and even with “superfast” computers such analyzes take from several days to over two months.
The slow time it takes means that you do not get notified about epidemics of resistant hospital bacteria such as tuberculosis, MRSA or enterococci before they break completely.
Bacteria cause billions of infections each year, and the point of this research is to reduce the spread of infection and get fewer diseases in the world, says the researcher.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today
