Urinary tract infection (UTI) caused by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is one of the most common infectious diseases in women. The morbidity and economic impact are enormous, with over $2.5 billion spent annually on treatment. The high rates of recurrence, and the large numbers of women that end up in urology clinics due to their chronic recurrent UTIs highlights the need for an effective biomarker to detect and treat the infection at an early stage. This technology provides cupric yersiniabactin as an effective biomarker for diagnosing UTI. This biomarker can also be used to detect other uropathogenic bacteria e.g. Yersinia, Klebsiella etc. This test avoids false negative results that occur when culture based methods are applied during antibiotic therapy or when bacteria are not actively shed into sampled fluids.

Advantages
• Rapid, pre-operative, robust assay with the ability to distinguish the virulence potential of the causal bacterial agent
• Avoids false positives in high risk patients undergoing antibiotic therapy

Latest Development
Clinical validation in human samples underway