Im Eun-kyung, a lead researcher at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) BioNano Research Center, announced on the 17th that her research team developed a new diagnostic technology called "CN-TAR (Cas9 Nickase-Triggered Amplification Reaction)" that can quickly and accurately detect dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria floating in the air alongside a research team led by Professor Hwang Jeong-ho from Yonsei University.
Recently, it has been revealed that methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE), which can cause pneumonia or sepsis, can be transmitted through the air. In particular, these antibiotic-resistant bacteria (superbacteria) are not easily treated with existing antibiotics, making field diagnostic technologies that can block infections in advance increasingly important.
The research team developed a technique called "CN-TAR" that uses gene scissors to accurately find and cut specific genes in bacteria, amplifying the resulting fragments and displaying them with light. This technology captures extremely small amounts of bacterial DNA in real time from the air and indicates their presence with light.
This technology was able to accurately detect bacteria even with trace amounts of genetic material and demonstrated similar or superior performance compared to widely used analytical methods in hospitals. It can be made into portable diagnostic devices without the need for expensive equipment, making it usable not only in hospitals but also in schools, nursing homes, food factories, pharmaceutical plants, and even for real-time monitoring of industrial wastewater or soil.
Im Eun-kyung, the lead researcher, noted, "This technology is a groundbreaking field diagnostic technology that allows anyone to quickly detect airborne bacteria without expensive equipment, and I expect it can make a direct contribution to protecting the lives and health of the public."
The results of this study were published online in the international journal "Journal of Hazardous Materials" on June 6th.
References
Journal of Hazardous Materials (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.138850