ASM Conference on Biofilms 2003

描述(由申请人提供)：表面相关微生物生命或生物膜的普遍存在，长期以来一直受到许多领域的研究人员的赞赏。众所周知，生物膜在许多环境、工业和临床过程中也扮演着良性和有害的角色。然而，直到最近，研究人员才开始证明，在许多情况下，生物膜的形成经历了一个发育周期，其特征是某些基因和蛋白质在这个周期的不同时间点有特定的表达。许多最初的工作都是在机会主义者铜绿假单胞菌身上进行的，尽管类似的研究已经在各种生物体中进行。这项工作使人们认识到，只研究自由游动的细菌可能会导致对微生物生命的偏见。 人们对生物膜的临床相关研究特别感兴趣。这并不令人惊讶--用抗生素治疗根除生物被膜细菌的困难是医学界最关心的问题。根据生物体、抗菌剂的类型和实验系统的不同，生物膜细菌对抗菌素压力的抵抗力可能比同类自由游动的细菌高出一千倍。了解抗菌素耐药性增加的本质是当今许多与医学相关的生物膜临床和基础研究的中心目标。哪些感染是由生物被膜引起的，这一确定是如何做出的？不幸的是，这是一个困难的问题，原因有很多。在许多人类感染中，细菌很难接触到，生物被膜和浮游生长可能共存。此外，细菌的生物膜状态没有明确的生理标志。生物膜是一种有组织的生长模式；因此，当细菌在液体培养中体外培养时，这种表型很快就会消失。 随着最近微生物生物膜中与生物膜相关的研究的激增，ASM正在赞助一场名为Biofilms 2003的会议，该会议将在不列颠哥伦比亚省的维多利亚举行。这次会议将允许研究人员聚集在一起讨论他们的工作。我们请求为这次会议提供资金，并希望NIH支持ASM提供财政援助。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ubiquity of surface-associated microbial life, or biofilms, has long been appreciated by researchers in many fields. Biofilms have also long been known to play benign and harmful roles in many environmental, industrial, and clinical processes. Only recently though, have researchers begun to demonstrate that biofilm formation in many cases proceeds through a developmental cycle, characterized by specific expression of certain genes and proteins at different points in the cycle. Much of the initial work has been conducted in the opportunist, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, although similar studies have been conducted in a variety of organisms. This work has lead to an appreciation that only studying free-swimming bacteria can lead to a biased view of microbial life. Interest in clinically related research on biofilms has been particularly great. This is not surprising- the difficulty of eradicating biofilm bacteria with antibiotic treatment is a prime concern of medicine. Depending upon the organism, type of antimicrobial and experimental system, biofilm bacteria can be up to a thousand times more resistant to antimicrobial stress than free-swimming bacteria of the same species. Understanding the nature of the increased antimicrobial resistance is a central goal of much clinical and basic research on medically relevant biofilms today. Which infections are caused by biofilms, and how is this determination made? Unfortunately, this is a difficult question for a number of reasons. In many human infections the bacteria are difficult to access, and biofilm and planktonic growth may co-exist. Furthermore there is no definitive physiological marker of the biofilm state for a bacterium. Biofilms are an organized mode of growth; consequently this phenotype is rapidly lost when bacteria are cultured ex vivo in liquid culture. With the recent explosion of biofilm-related research in microbial biofilms, ASM is sponsoring a meeting called Biofilms 2003 to be held in Victoria, British Columbia. This meeting will allow researchers to gather and discuss their work. We request funds for this meeting and hope that NIH will support ASM in providing financial assistance.