As a part of professional development, I attended the 8th ASM Biofilms conference in Washington DC and the 90th Society of Rheology meeting in Houston. Since my research involves measuring the viscoelasticity of biofilms (single species, laboratory generated mutants and hopefully microbial communities), it becomes imperative to keep track of advances in both (disparate) fields.
The biofilms conference started with a hands on workshop on “Imaging and quantifying biofilms” where we were introduced to high throughput solutions for growing biofilms in chambers and well plates. Following this we looked at the fluorescence of pre-stained biofilms using a Leica confocal microscope(SP8) analysed the images using Imaris and Comstat. Numerous interesting talks were delivered on topics ranging from Biofilm metabolism, mechanics, antimicrobial tolerance, anti-biofilm strategies, assembly of biofilm matrix, use of pili in biofilms, characteristics of multi species biofilms and social/asocial interactions between communities that shapes biofilm development. Most notable amongst them discussed:1) the role of structural proteins/polymers in providing shape/architecture to Vibrio cholera and Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms 2) long range electrical signal percolation in biofilms 3) Striking colony shapes in co-cultures of Bacillus 3610 & P. agglomerans 4) How molecular forces shape bacterial colonies 5) Single cell resolution architecture mapping in Vibrio cholera biofilms and 6) biofilm lithography techniques by using optical tweezing and molecular biology techniques.
The rheology conference started with a pre meeting workshop on polymer nano-composites, where we were introduced to the concepts in polymer physics and how to apply them to the experimental scenarios. The breadth of the examples covered in the workshop enhanced my knowledge of composite materials in general; introduced me to the emerging challenges in the area of multifunctional nano-composites. Of particular interest were talks on: 1) transient dynamics of yielding in soft materials 2) shear banding in bacterial suspension and thixotropic yield stress fluids 3) viscoelasticity of brownian spheroids in shear flow 4) confocal microscopy of sheared colloidal suspensions and 5) colloidal gels doped with activity.
Talks from both the conferences has helped me germinate new ideas and directions for my research on biofilm viscoelasticity. The microbiology community has a lot of experience in determining the role of structural polymers for biofilm formation by creating mutants. While the rheology community has all the new theoretical and experimental tools to quantify and predict the effect of these structural polymers. Together these complimentary approaches and tools from both communities can help tackle the challenges in deciphering the mechanical robustness of the biofilms and has the potential to solve the challenges faced by industries and medicine.
By Saikat Jana
Last modified: Wed, 07 Nov 2018 14:16:41 GMT