The invention provides a determination method for determining the presence of a target microorganism in a patient from a sample of said patient's stools, the method being characterized in that it comprises the following operations: obtaining a sample of liquid stools of said patient or a liquid sample obtained from stools of said patient, referred to as the liquid sample; pretreating the liquid sample with activated carbon; and using immunochromatography to detect in the resulting pretreated liquid sample the possible presence of at least one antigen of the target microorganism so as to come to a conclusion about the presence or the absence of the target microorganism in said patient.

The invention also provides a device (1) for detecting an antigen of a target microorganism in the liquid sample (3) by immunochromatography, the device including a zone (20) for purification with activated carbon (21).

Compositions, methods, and kits are disclosed directed at haptens, immunogens and immunoassays for oxycodone and metabolites thereof. The compounds are exemplified by compounds of the Formula I. The method comprises providing in combination in a medium (i) a sample suspected of containing oxycodone and/or oxycodone metabolites, a compound of the Formula I wherein R.sup.4 or R.sup.5 is a label, and an antibody for oxycodone or a metabolite thereof. The medium is examined for the presence of a complex comprising the labeled compound of Formula I where the presence of such as complex indicates the presence of oxycodone or oxycodone metabolite in the sample.

The disclosure provides methods and compositions that are useful to lessen and/or cure bacterial biofilms and treat diseases or disorders associated with biofilms using one or more novel polypeptide vaccines, antibodies, antibody fragments and compositions. Bacteria that cannot form functional biofilms are more readily cleared by the remainder of the host's immune system and/or traditional antibiotics.

With the aim of proving an antibacterial composition against oral bacteria and the like capable of inducing Th1 cell proliferation or activation in an intestinal tract, the present inventors have found out that bacteria that suppress colonization and the like of the oral bacteria and the like in the intestinal tract are present in an intestinal microbiota. Moreover, the present inventors have succeeded in isolating intestinal bacteria that suppress intestinal colonization and the like of oral bacteria and the like.

The present disclosure relates to monoclonal antibodies that bind poly-γ-D-glutamic acid (γDPGA), which is present on the surface of Bacillus anthracis. The disclosure also provides chimeric forms of the monoclonal antibodies, humanized forms of the monoclonal antibodies, and fragments thereof, as well as nucleic acids encoding the antibodies and fragments thereof. Pharmaceutical compositions including such antibodies are also disclosed herein. The disclosure further provides prophylactic, therapeutic, and diagnostic methods of using the disclosed antibodies.

The present invention relates to a method for liquefying respiratory samples, such as sputum samples. Samples of this type are characterized in that they can be highly viscous or semisolid, which means that to detect pathogenic microorganisms in them, they require prior treatment in order to make them more liquid and homogeneous. The liquefaction method proposed in the present innovation enables pathogenic microorganisms that cause respiratory infections to be subsequently detected.

The present invention relates to the means and methods for the detection of bacterial infections, methods discriminating between viral and bacterial infections, methods of stratifying patients for subsequent treatment and further diagnostic purposes and methods to monitor antibiotherapy. The present invention is based on the detection of specific epitopes of human neutrophil lipocalin (HNL) using specific binding agents.

An imaging system and method for microbial growth detection, counting or identification. One colony may be contrasted in an image that is not optimal for another type of colony. The system and method provides contrast from all available material through space (spatial differences), time (differences appearing over time for a given capture condition) and color space transformation using image input information over time to assess whether microbial growth has occurred for a given sample.

Methods and kits are provided for analyzing a fluid with a flow cytometer to determine the concentration of a target component in the fluid. At least two bead groups are combined with the fluid, wherein each of the bead groups includes surface-functionalized beads that have a different size from the other bead groups. The target component can bind to the functional groups on the beads, and the beads with the targets can be counted with the flow cytometer. Based on the numbers of beads with targets in each group, a most probable number (MPN) of the target component can be determined.

Systems and methods for characterizing biological specimens, which may involve identifying a cell type or state corresponding to a disease or health condition of a subject. A biological specimen is subjected to electromagnetic radiation for spectroscopic analysis such as Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) to determine the relative abundance of proteins or amino acids in the cells, which is used in a comparison to previously stored relative abundance data of a database to automatically identifies at least one of cell type and/or cell state of the cells (or the disease/health state of the subject with the disease state including the possibility of virus infection, or drug susceptibility of a subject to bacteria or fungus). The method may also be employed with biological entities or cellular structures such as exosomes and even protein or nucleic acid fragments to determine disease states or health states of the subject.