Stopping "superbugs" like MRSA once they've got a foothold is extremely difficult. There's good news, however: New technology allows the superbugs to be detected more rapidly than ever before. This helps health care officials to identify outbreaks faster, prevent them from spreading, and allow for faster treatment.

Carlsbad's Isis Pharmaceuticals has developed a device that detects a wide range of infectious microbes, including the superbugs, in four to five hours. Called the IBIS T5000, it's intended to detect dangerous microbes, not only from superbug outbreaks, but deliberately created menaces from biological warfare.

An Isis subsidiary, Ibis, received federal funding to develop the device with both uses in mind. It's mainly in use now by military and other government agencies, but Isis plans to sell it to civilian hospitals starting later this year.

The Ibis device works in one pass, testing for the molecular fingerprints of a wide variety of microbes, including bacteria and viruses.

Quick identification not only helps track the spread of infections, but helps treatment by avoiding the use of antibiotics when they're not helpful, such as against viruses, said Garth Ehrlich, executive director at the Pittsburgh-based Center for Genomic Sciences.

Overuse of antibiotics is a major factor in the evolution of superbugs, said Ehrlich, who has worked with the Ibis device.

Conventional tests usually require one to four days, Ehrlich said, often using culturing to get enough microbes to test, a "long laborious process."

"With the IBIS 5000, you get critical information to greatly reduce the turnaround time for treating patients," Ehrlich said. "You can use more specific, less broad-spectrum antibiotics."

Ehrlich said he has not heard of any other microbe detector with the capabilities of the Ibis device.

William Craumer, an Isis spokesman, said he put the Ibis device to use when his 16-year-old daughter was recently hospitalized for an unknown ailment. She was sick for most of a week and lost much weight, but eventually recovered and was discharged, the cause of her illness unknown.

Curious about what had caused it, Craumer got a sample of his daughter's blood from the hospital and plugged it into the Ibis device.

"I found out it was the Norwalk virus," Craumer said. As a viral infection, it could not have been treated with antibiotics. There is no treatment for Norwalk virus, which causes gastrointestinal illness. However, infected people usually recover on their own. In the United States, Norwalk infections are often linked to eating raw oysters.

Isis is considering spinning off Ibis into its own company, Craumer said. The Ibis technology is quite different than that of Isis, which focuses on drug development with its gene-blocking "anti-sense" technology.

Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com.