National Biofilms Innovation Centre

微生物生物膜和群落共同代表了地球上最大的生物量，估计地球上96%的微生物存在于微生物生物膜和群落中，而不是以自由游泳的形式存在。生物膜在自然和建筑环境的生物学中以及在维护公共健康方面发挥着重要作用。它们是医院获得性感染的最大原因之一，并可能导致慢性疾病。除了它们在感染和疾病中的公认作用外，它们还可以支撑或破坏广泛的工业部门：从食品和饮料到石油和天然气，从海洋工业到建筑环境。全球生物膜的年度经济意义和影响估计约为39，000亿美元（约为1000亿美元）。英国450亿英镑）。国家生物膜创新中心（NBIC）是一个泛英国的创新和知识中心，旨在将英国学术界的专业知识与工业和第三部门的最终用户联系起来。通过汇集英国在生物膜研究方面的优势，并将其与工业家的专业知识相结合，NBIC旨在提供新的解决方案和突破性技术，这些技术将对日常生活产生影响。在第二阶段，随着NBIC的成熟，我们将利用过去4年来汇集的大量学术和行业用户群，专注于开发新技术，用于预防，检测，生物膜群落的管理和工程。我们将利用我们最好的科学家和工程师来确定如何最好地安全地设计防止生物膜的表面，建立确定是否存在有问题的生物膜的方法，创建在生物膜无法根除时安全管理生物膜的协议，并确定如何设计生物膜以获得最大利益。我们将通过建立测量生物膜的方法来做到这一点，这些方法可以与社区广泛分享，使用我们掌握的先进技术和计算工具。通过利用我们的国家连通性，我们还将建立统一的标准，可用于指导围绕生物膜控制和开发的监管环境。作为地球上最主要的生物质，生物膜对全球变暖引起的环境变化非常敏感，在新能源的开发中将发挥重要作用。随着气候变化的发展，对粮食和水安全至关重要的生物膜群落也将发生变化，其变化方式难以预测。随着我们的基础设施改变以适应NetZero世界，新的生物膜挑战将不可避免地出现。通过利用我们不同社区的优势，包括生物和物理科学家，工程师，数学家，社会科学家，临床医生，工业家和企业家，并通过培训下一代科学家谁可以解决复杂的生物膜研究问题，我们将把英国放在努力的最前沿，以减轻这些全球性挑战，导致可持续发展和繁荣的英国。

Microbial biofilms and communities represent, collectively, the largest biomass on the planet, with an estimated 96% of microbes on Earth found in microbial biofilms and communities rather than in a free-swimming form. Biofilms play major roles in the biology of the natural and built environments, and in maintaining public health. They are one of the biggest causes of hospital-acquired infections and can cause chronic disease. In addition to their well-recognised role in infection and disease, they can underpin or disrupt a wide range of industrial sectors: from food and drink to oil and gas, and from the marine industries to the built environment. The annual economic significance and impact of biofilms has been estimated at ~$3,900 bn globally (approx. £45 bn in the UK). The National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) is a pan-UK Innovation and Knowledge Centre established to connect the expertise of the UK's academic community with end users in industry and the third sector. By bringing together the UK's strength in biofilm research, and combining it with the expertise of industrialists, NBIC aims to deliver new solutions and breakthrough technologies that will have an impact on day-to-day lives.During Phase 2, as NBIC matures, we will harness the large academic and industry user base brought together over the last 4 years to focus on the development of new technologies for the prevention, detection, management and engineering of biofilm communities. We will draw on the best of our scientists and engineers to determine how best to safely design surfaces that prevent biofilms, establish methods to determine whether a problematic biofilm is present, create protocols for managing biofilms safely when they cannot be eradicated, and determine how to engineer biofilms for maximum benefit. We will do this by establishing ways of measuring biofilms that can be widely shared with the community, using advanced techniques and computational tools at our disposal. By leveraging our national connectivity, we will also establish uniform standards that can be used to guide the regulatory environment around biofilm control and exploitation. As the predominant biomass on the planet, biofilms are susceptible to the changing environment driven by global warming, and will play an important role in new sources of energy generation. As climate change progresses, biofilm communities that are important to food and water security will also change, in ways that it is difficult to predict. As our infrastructure changes to adapt to a NetZero world, new biofilm challenges will inevitably arise. By harnessing the strengths of our disparate community, comprising biological and physical scientists, engineers, mathematicians, social scientists, clinicians, industrialists and entrepreneurs and by training the next generation of scientists who can address complex biofilm research questions, we will place the UK at the forefront of the effort to mitigate these global challenges, leading to a sustainable and prosperous UK.