Using an innovative CRISPR Guided Vector technology to prevent and disrupt biofilms in the food chain and humans

细菌生物膜给当今社会带来了巨大的问题，造成设备损坏、产品污染、能源和产品损失以及医疗感染。这些健康问题影响到食品、环境和生物医学部门，每年给全球工业、城市和医院造成3820亿英镑的损失。以前，生物膜管理的传统方法是使用漂白剂等刺激性化学品，用磨料进行劳动密集型物理去除，或者简单地丢弃受影响的管道或管道。这些去除生物膜的方法成本高、耗时长、劳动强度大且效果不佳，通常需要多次攻击。对有效的生物膜管理和控制解决方案的需求尚未得到满足，这些解决方案比现有技术更简单、更便宜、更可持续。该项目旨在研究一种新的基因编辑技术的使用，以选择性地针对单个菌株的细菌，并防止/破坏生物膜的形成，以应用于农业作物喷雾处理。这将使Folium与东英吉利大学约翰英纳斯中心合作，作为第一家将这种特定基因技术应用于作物处理的公司，建立领先的市场地位。该项目的影响将为新鲜水果和蔬菜行业提供4000万英镑的初步成本节约，为当前的处理方法提供替代方案，减少食品供应链中的作物腐败和生物膜污染，并有可能继续将这项技术转移到生物医学治疗应用和制造清洁解决方案中。

Bacterial biofilms present a massive problem to today's society, causing equipment damage, product contamination, energy and product losses, and medical infections. These health concerns affect food, environmental and biomedical sectors, with a cost to industry, cities and hospitals of \>£382billion globally each year. Traditional approaches to biofilm management have previously made use of harsh chemicals such as bleach, labour-intensive physical removal with abrasive materials or simply discarded effected piping or tubing. These methods are costly, time-consuming, labour intensive and ineffective for biofilm removal with a multi-attack approached often required.There is a major unmet need for effective biofilm management and control solutions which are simpler, cheaper and more sustainable than existing technologies.This project seeks to research the use of a novel gene editing technology to selectively target individual strains of bacteria and prevent/disrupt the formation of biofilms to be applied as a crop spray treatment in agriculture. This will enable Folium, in collaboration with the John Innes Centre/University of East Anglia to establish a leading market position as the first company to formulate this specific genetic technology in to a crop treatment. The impact of this project would provide an initial cost avoidance to the fresh fruit and vegetable industry of c.£40 million by offering an alternative to current treatment methods and reducing crop spoilage and biofilm contamination in the food supply chain, with potential to go on and transfer this technology to biomedical therapeutic applications and manufacturing cleaning solutions.