Biofilms are communities of microbes attached to surfaces. Interest in these communities has been intense because of their negative impacts in drinking water systems, in industry and in other settings. Biofilms can also be beneficial. For example, bacteria can colonize plant roots and protect those plants from disease causing microbes, thereby serving as an alternative to pesticides. Biofilm forming microbes also contribute to breaking down toxic contaminants during wastewater treatment. This research focuses on how these biofilms are formed by an important environmental microbe called Pseudomonas fluorescens. In particular, the project addresses how this microbe responds to environmental signals to control the formation of biofilms, and how those environmental signals are sensed by the bacterium to control the formation of the surface-attached communities. The control system explored here is widely conserved among bacterial species, so the outcomes of these studies will be broadly applicable to a large range of important microbes. A greater understanding of these processes will help aid in the control of biofilm communities.
Broader Impacts: The goal of this project is to better understand how microbes control formation of biofilm communities, and through this information, we may better manipulate microbes to promote or block their formation to the benefit of agriculture, wastewater treatment and industrial processes. During the course of this project, six undergraduate and/or high school students will have the opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research projects by working in the laboratory and presenting their work to other scientists. Information gained through this research will be posted and discussed on a regular basis on the lab web site (www.dartmouthbiofilm.org). Furthermore, the project leader is actively engaged in the education of graduate and undergraduate students, and founded and directed a program that has brought over 70 undergraduates to the Dartmouth campus to participate in a research experience to date. A critical component of this proposal is to help educate undergraduate, graduate and high school students in the sciences, to help prepare these students for careers in the sciences and to broadly communicate the findings from this work to other scientists and the general public.
