Influence of Surface Properties on the Formation of Biofilms

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When bacteria attach to solid surfaces, several changes accompany their new immobile lifestyle. Most noticeable among these is the secretion of a slimy material known as extracellular polymeric substance. This is the film that you feel on your teeth in the morning, or the slippery layer under your feet when standing on rocks under water. The combination of adsorbed cells, secreted products, and other recruited microbes is called a biofilm, and has attracted the attention of chemists, biologists, materials scientists and industrial engineers. Aquatic biofilms form on the hulls of ships within seconds, promote the attachments of larger marine organisms such as barnacles, and thereby increase fuel costs due to the additional drag. Nearly all industrial manufacturing processes in contact with water struggle to stay one step ahead of bacterial fouling, impeding the flow of chemicals in pipes, and altering the thermal conduction of heat exchangers. On the other hand, biofilms are key components modern sewage and wastewater treatment strategies. The nature of the solid surface is one of the factors identified as key to the formation of biofilms. And yet, after four decades of investigation, this remains one of the areas in which the least amount of knowledge has been acquired. The challenge lies in the complexity of the interfacial environment, involving the substrate, interfacial water molecules, dissolved ions, and other species in solutions. Over the past seven years, we have developed a combination of experimental and modeling tools that is geared towards structure elucidation at the solid-aqueous interface. We now propose to investigate how surface and solution conditions affect the early stages of biofilm development. We will employ a combination of spectroscopy, microscopy, and data analysis routines to monitor changes in the biofilm interfacial environment in real-time. The anticipated results of this work will enable scientists to have a deeper molecular-level picture of the interactions that govern the earliest stages of biofilm growth, leading to new strategies for their control. Along the way, this research will provide an outstanding multi-disciplinary training environment for junior researchers at all levels, in preparation for leadership roles in academic and industrial settings.