The promise of biofilm research

David Davies has found -- and is in the process of synthesizing -- a compound that will cause biofilm colonies to disperse, thus leaving individual bacteria up to 1,000 times more susceptible to disinfectants, antibiotics and immune functions.

Transcript:
Biofilms are assemblages of microorganisms that grow associated with a surface and often they're composed of many different species. they're the sorts of things that you would find in a toilet boil. It's what you would be brushing off of your teeth in the morning and evening. We see biofilms attached to surfaces of rocks, so they're groups of microorganisms that are living in close contact with one another, usually embedded in what we would call a slime matrix.

So biofilm bacteria are varied. They are exquisitely resistant to treatment with anti-microbicides, whether they're biocides or antibiotics. One of our principle interests in this lab is biofilms -- the treatment of biofilms in a medical context. And so we're concerned about biofilms that cause chronic diseases in humans, and there are numerous examples. For instance -- in this comes the answer, I think, to another question you had. Prostatitis, perhaps intestinal diseases such as Crohn's disease and inflammatory bowel disease, sinusitis, otitis, conjunctivitis, even atherosclerosis, which is hardening of the arteries, is believed to be induced by bacterial growth as a biofilm inside blood vessels. And so all of these chronic ailments are ones that we don't find treatable, and people actually go on throughout their entire lives just assuming that this is the human condition, and not thinking often that they may be suffering from an infection.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• The
• promise
• of
• biofilm
• research
• David
• Davies
• Binghamton
• University

[lub783]

IBD and RA...wow i didnt know biofilms contributed to such diseases.

[ecftube]

Wrote a Lyme disease brochure with the help of 2 Lyme doctors....will be happy to email anyone a copy.

Elaine in VA