A fidget spinner to detect urinary tract infections

The diagnostic spinner in action. (credit: Yoon-Kyoung Cho (Nature )

Urinary tract infections have been called the canary in the coal mine" of global antibiotic resistance. With more than half of all women having a UTI in their lifetime and men increasing in susceptibility as they age, UTIs are one of the most common bacterial infections in the world.

Because it's not always possible to check for a bacterial infection in a urine sample, patients are often given antibiotics on the basis of symptoms alone-a practice that contributes to the growing resistance of many UTIs to the most common treatments.

We may be rescued by an unexpected hero: the fidget spinner. In a paper in Nature Biomedical Engineering this week, researchers in South Korea and India describe a new test for UTIs that needs nothing more than a couple of spins, by hand, of a spinner-like device. Its results-which can be read by anyone-are ready in around an hour.

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