Biofilms are ubiquitous surface-attached bacterial communities that can cause major problems in industrial settings by fouling surfaces and by clogging pipes and filtration devices. However, biofilms can also be beneficial, for instance, in waste-water treatment and in microbiomes. The project will employ three-dimensional imaging, genetic techniques, mechanical measurements of biofilm properties, and biophysical theory and modeling to provide a unified, multi-scale characterization of biofilms that spans from the level of the cell to that of tightly organized collectives of thousands of cells. The results will define how properties that emerge in the "collective" determine the biofilm's material properties. The project will further provide opportunities for interdisciplinary training within an integrated research framework in which students and postdocs from biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics spend significant time in laboratories other than their own.
In this research, the three integrated thrusts are: (1) to explore the origins and consequences of behavioral heterogeneity in growing biofilms, (2) to characterize biofilm mechanics from the micro-scale (a single cell or cluster of cells) to the macro-scale (the biofilm), and (3) to determine how physico/chemical and mechanical features of the environment influence microscopic and macroscopic biofilm properties. The focus is on the model quorum-sensing marine bacterium, Vibrio cholerae. The fundamental understanding gained through this research will enable development of biological and engineering strategies to promote or discourage formation of bacterial biofilms in relevant industrial and other applied settings, and, by connecting micro-scale and environmental features to macroscopic properties, may enable the discovery and design of new materials. Finally, the interdisciplinary work will lead to understanding of spatial and temporal gene expression programs in biofilms at the single-cell level and reveal how those programs, in conjunction with environmental factors, dictate the large-scale architectural and mechanical features of these multicellular systems.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
