Single-cell antibiotic susceptibility testing

Antibiotic susceptibility in an hour, without a new instrument

Nornir Labs makes a single-use device and AI software that let a standard lab microscope watch bacteria respond to antibiotics or any other test agent. The answer comes within one generation of growth.

Colony on a Petri dish~20 generations · 16–20 h
EUCAST RAST6 h
Single cells in the Nornir cartridge~1 generation · <1 h
The Nornir Labs cartridge: a white plastic card with four sample ports and a central imaging window with microfluidic channels.
Prototype cartridge. Research use only.
A Petri dish for single cell biology

See the response in the first generation

For a hundred years, susceptibility testing has meant waiting for bacteria to grow into a visible colony. That takes about twenty generations, so results arrive the next day, or weeks later for tuberculosis.

The Nornir cartridge holds bacteria in growth chambers under a microscope and exposes them to antibiotic. Depending on the microscope, our AI segments groups of cells or individual cells in label-free images. A resistant isolate can be told from a susceptible one in one generation, and typically faster if multiple individual bacteria are tracked.

Resistant isolate keeps growingR
AI segmentationPhase contrast
Susceptible isolate stops growingS
AI segmentationPhase contrast

E. coli from a colony, amikacin 4 µg/mL, 0–50 min in the cartridge. Left half: each cell outlined by the AI segmentation; right half: the phase-contrast image.

Workflow · about 5 minutes hands-on

How it works

  1. Load

    A colony suspension or a positive culture goes into the cartridge.

  2. Expose

    Cells are trapped and the cartridge drives its own flow to deliver the antibiotic.

  3. Image

    Label-free snapshots on a standard microscope. Between images the cartridge sits in an incubator.

  4. Read

    The AI tracks growth against the drug-free reference and calls susceptible or resistant.

Design

Built for the lab you already have

No analyzer to buy

The cartridge runs on a microscope the lab already owns. Implementation is a consumables decision, not a capital purchase.

Self-driven flow

The cartridge generates its own pressure and flow. There are no pumps, tubing or instrument connections.

Sealed

With no open ports, the cartridge is hermetically sealed after loading, so high-containment organisms such as M. tuberculosis can be tested safely.

Frees the microscope

Each cartridge is imaged for minutes and can be incubated elsewhere, so one microscope serves many cartridges in parallel.

Any species, any antibiotic

Cells grow in open chambers, and the panel is set by what is loaded and the analysis code, not by the hardware.

Analysis AI that improves

Segmentation works on label-free images from different microscopes, and the models will get better as we get more data from more species, isolates and microscopes.

Protected by five patent applications filed 2024–2026.

Applications

Where we are today

Proof of concept

Bacterial colonies

Result in under 60 min · today: overnight

One colony is resuspended in medium and loaded. Growth and no growth separate within the first hour of exposure. This is our first product focus, starting with Gram-negative pathogens.

Field testing

Drug-resistant tuberculosis

Result in about a day · today: about 2 weeks

Tested in a biosafety level 3 laboratory in South Africa by independent operators, using clinical M. tuberculosis samples. We have also tested the first patient sample in Sweden.

M. tuberculosis along the trap at time 0 h. Orange outline: the cells now; teal outline: the area they will cover at 24.8 h.Time 0 h
The same chamber at time 24.8 h, with the cells grown out to the teal outline.Time 24.8 h
M. tuberculosis imaged on a simple phase-contrast microscope, 20X objective, NA 0.50
In development

Stealth application

Details to be announced

A further application of the platform is in development. We will share more when the time is right.

Nornir cartridges are for research use only and are not cleared for clinical diagnosis. Research labs and pharma teams interested in single-cell assays are welcome to get in touch.

Science

Twenty years of single-cell microbiology

Nornir Labs builds on research in the Elf lab at Uppsala University, where single bacteria have been imaged and tracked in microfluidic devices for two decades.

AST

Antibiotic susceptibility testing

Phenotypic susceptibility from single bacterial cells, from urinary and blood pathogens to tuberculosis.

Bacteria directly from blood

With Wouter van der Wijngaart's group at KTH: isolating and detecting bacteria in blood without waiting for a blood culture.

Examples of single-cell biophysics and imaging

From the Elf lab.

People

Team and board

Team

Petter Knagge, PhDCEOIVD product development
Elias Amselem, PhDCTOSoftware and optics
Jimmy Larsson, PhDPrincipal ScientistFluidics and assay
Buu Minh Tran, PhDSenior ScientistMicrobiology and clinical studies
Irmeli Barkefors, PhDOperationsMicrofluidics and project management

Board

Gunilla LundmarkChairUU Invest
Ove ÖhmanBoard memberSerial IVD entrepreneur
Johan WinnerbladBoard memberPartner, Vinge
Johan ElfBoard memberAcademic founder; Professor, Uppsala University

Founding investors

Navigare First, Leksell Social Ventures and UU Invest.

Our academic proof-of-concept work has been funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, Wallenberg Launch Pad, the Novo Nordisk Foundation and Vinnova.

Contact

Get in touch

For partnerships, research collaborations and investor enquiries, contact Petter Knagge, CEO.