Next generation approaches for biofilm research

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Intensified awareness of environmental protection has renewed interest in microbially-mediated processes for restoring contaminated environments and converting waste and other substrates into value-added products such as ethanol. Microbes in these processes are often in close association with surfaces, where the cells grow as biofilms. A lack of information about the factors controlling metabolism of biofilms in natural and engineered environments limits our ability to fully exploit or manage their activity. Similarly, our inability to control biofilm survival and proliferation in clinical settings has resulted in an alarming increase in hospital-acquired infections and multi-drug resistance. My current NSERC Discovery grant has enabled me to develop novel approaches to study biofilm form and function, which provided a platform for establishing a number of academic and industrial collaborations during the four years since moving to Ryerson from South Africa. The goal of the proposed Discovery grant is to conduct fundamental research complementary to three of these collaborations: