Sensing the unreachable: challenges and opportunities in biofilm detection

Xu, Yikang, Dhaouadi, Yousr, Stoodley, Paul and Ren, Dacheng (2020) Sensing the unreachable: challenges and opportunities in biofilm detection. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 64, 79-84. (doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2019.10.009).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Bacteria can attach to essentially all materials and form multicellular biofilms with high-level tolerance to antimicrobials. Detrimental biofilms are responsible for a variety of problems ranging from food and water contamination, bio-corrosion, to drug resistant infections. Besides the challenges in control, biofilms are also difficult to detect due to the lack of biofilm-specific biomarkers and methods for non-destructive imaging. In this article, we present a concise review of recent advancements in this field, with a focus on medical device-associated infections. We also discuss the technologies that have potential for non-destructive detection of bacterial biofilms.

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Accepted/In Press date: 30 October 2019

e-pub ahead of print date: 22 November 2019

Published date: August 2020

Additional Information: Funding Information: The authors thank the U.S. National Science Foundation for an ERC planning grant ( 1936926 ), which facilitates discussions of future research on microbial control and partially led to this review article. PS is funded by the NIH R01GM124436. DR's current research on catheters is supported by NIH 1R21AI142424-01. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Elsevier Ltd