Fecha de publicación: -- Fuente: WIPO "tomato" Methods are provided for the rapid detection of microbial cells. In some embodiments, microbial cells are obtained from a sample and inoculated onto a solid growth medium, incubated and monitored to detect microcolonies. Microbial cells from a microcolony ate harvested to provide microbial cells for rapid nucleic acid amplification and/or sequencing. The microbial cells may be obtained from a sample containing whole blood by lysing host blood cells with a blood lysis reagent and separating the microbial cells to obtain a suspension. A method of separating microbial cells from a whole blood sample is provided in which the whole blood sample is mixed with a blood lysis reagent containing saponin and sodium polyanethole sulfonate to form a first mixture, and subsequently mixed with an alkaline buffer to form a second mixture. A separation process is then employed to separate microbial cells from the second mixture.