Center for Biofilm Engineering News Update:  September, 2001 Volume 4, Issue 8-9 __________________________________________   Research Highlights   Paper Spotlight   Biofilms have been shown to be resistant to antimicrobial agents (AA) in laboratory studies. This suggests that biofilms have general properties that endow them with protection from AA. One of the most plausible theories of general biofilm resistance is that microbes in most biofilms have adapted their existence to respond optimally to moderated fluxes of substances. This ability enables microbes at selected locations within the biofilm to survive exposure to AA. This hypothesis can be tested only by correlating AA transport with AA action with spatial discrimination. To this aim, two vibrational spectroscopies have been combined to characterize transport of the AA, chlorhexidine, to locations in a Candida albicans biofilm. C albicans is an opportunistic pathogen that causes life-threatening infections in immunocompromised patients.   Suci, P.A., G.G. Geesey, B.J. Tyler, "Integration of Raman Microscopy, Differential Interference Contrast Microscopy, and Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to Investigate Chlorhexidine Spatial and Temporal Distribution in Candida albicans Biofilms," J. Microbiol. Meth., 46:193-208 (2001).   __________________________________________   Drinking Lake Water   During the summer of 2000, Dr. Ryan Jordan supervised two undergraduate students investigating backcountry water quality, portable filtration device performance, and biofilm growth on filter elements, as part of the REU program, under sponsorship from Mountain Safety Research, Exstream Technologies, and Safewater Anywhere. Ryan remains involved as a design consultant to industry for point-of-use filtration technologies and has surveyed backcountry water quality across the U.S. in an effort to identify pathogenic organisms present in natural biofilms. Ryan was recently interviewed by Boundary Waters Magazine for an article on backcountry water treatment. The article ("Drinking Lake Water: Caution Is Good, Fear Is Not," by Ed Stiles) is available online at http://www.boundarywatersmagazine.com/features/0801_water.htm in the "August Features" section."   _______   Radio Interview   Dr. Philip Stewart was interviewed by the Yellowstone Public Radio on August 27, 2001. The subject of the program was "What a biofilm is and how research on biofilm may hold important implications for both medical and industrial settings."     __________________________________________   Visiting Faculty & Students   Henning Seedorf is a visiting student from Marburg, Germany where he studies biology/microbiology. He will spend three months at the CBE working with Dr. Karin Sauer doing RT-PCR, construction of reporter genes, and some microscopy.   _______   Dr. William G. Pitt, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Brigham Young University, is taking a sabbatical and pursuing his interests in biofilms at the CBE fall semester 2001. He presented an MSU campus seminar, "Ultrasonic Enhanced Antibiotic Treatment of Biofilms," September 13, 2001.   _______   Isabel Sarro, a PhD Candidate in Biology from the University Politecnica of Madrid, Spain, is visiting the CBE for one month to learn FISH probe techniques.   __________________________________________   Upcoming CBE Workshops and Meetings   See the Events Calendar at http://www.erc.montana.edu/CBEssentials-SW/whats_new/index.htm     _________________________________________   CBE People in Action   Dr. Bill Costerton was invited to present "Bacterial Biofilms as Integrated Communities," at the Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Population Biology at Williams College, Williamstown, MA, July 29-30.   Dr. Paul Stoodley organized and chaired a session "Monitoring and Control of Microbial Biofilms" at the Society for Industrial Microbiology 2001 Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO, July 29 - August 2, 2001.   Dr. Bill Costerton as invited speaker presented "Device-Related Infections, Biofilms, and Quorum Sensing," to the Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical 5th Annual Anti-Infective Brain Trust, Cape Cod, MA, August 2-4, 2001.   Dr. Bill Costerton was invited to present "The Microbial Ecology of the Intact and Disturbed Human Skin," at the Gordon Research Conference on Barrier Function of Mammalian Skin, Bristol, RI, August 5-7, 2001.   Dr. Anne Camper presented "Battling Biofilms" to the Southern California Branch of the American Society for Microbiology and to Gen-Probe, San Diego, CA, August 23, 2001.   Dr. Bill Costerton, as invited plenary speaker presented "Biofilms as Highly Structured Multi-Cellular Communities," at the 9th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (ISME-9) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Bill also presented a poster entitled "Presence and Qualitative Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus in the Vagina During Menstruation," August 27-31, 2001.   Dr. Bill Costerton, as an invited keynote speaker presented "Bacterial Biofilms with Particular Reference to Their Role in Disease," at the EURESCO Conference" on Biofilms and Mucus Secreting Epithelia," Canterbury, United Kingdom, September 3-7, 2001.   Thomas Borch, Jace Harwood, Diane Walker, and Ryan Jordan presented a poster entitled "Bioavailability of TNT and its Amine Metabolites," at the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001.   Dr. Al Cunningham, served as Chair of the Symposium Organizational Committee for the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001.   Dr. Robin Gerlach presented "Iron-Reducing Bacteria and Permeable Reactive Subsurface Barriers," at the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001. He also presented a poster, "Explanation of Bacterial Transport Enhancement by Starvation."   Dr. Timothy Magnuson presented "Integration of Molecular and Surface Analytical Techniques to Study Dissimilatory Metal Reducing Bacteria," at the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001.   Dr. Andy Neal presented "Direct Manganese-Reduction by Desulfovibrio Desulfuricans Essex6 (NCIMB 8307;ATCC 29577)," at the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001.   Paul Sturman presented "Control of Acid Rock Drainage from Mine Tailings Using Biobarriers," at the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001.   Dr. Richard Veeh presented "MTBE Biodegradation Potential at a Gasoline Release Site in Montana," at the INRA Subsurface Science Symposium, Idaho Falls, ID, September 6-7, 2001.   Dr. Bill Costerton as invited speaker presented "Bacterial Biofilms: A Common Cause of Persistent Infections," at the Meeting of the 'DFG'-Priority Research Program "Ecology of Human Pathogenic Bacteria: Molecular and Evolutionary Aspects," at the Hotel Berlin in Berlin, Germany, September 13-15, 2001.   Dr. Bill Costerton was invited to present to the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health's (CDRH) Antimicrobial Device Efficacy Testing Seminar, Rockville, MD, September 17-18, 2001.   Dr. Phil Stewart as invited speaker will present "Antibiotic Resistance in Biofilms," at the ICAAC Meeting, Chicago, IL, September 24, 2001.   __________________________________________   Theses   See theses abstracts at http://www.erc.montana.edu/Res-Lib99-SW/pubs/Theses/default.htm     __________________________________________   Web Watch   See the BiofilmsOnline.com September issue at http://www.BiofilmsOnline.com   Check our Recent Web Updates page created to make it easy for you to locate new information on the CBE web. See http://www.erc.montana.edu/Recent%20Web%20Updates/default.htm     __________________________________________   Newsletter Listserve   The CBE News Update is a listserve newsletter. If you need to subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserve, follow the directions at the following CBE website.   http://www.erc.montana.edu/Res-Lib99-SW/newsarchives/subscribe.htm   An alternative to subscribing to the listserve is to view the CBE News Update on our web page at http://www.erc.montana.edu/Ind-Col99-SW/Current_Newsletter/default.htm. Newsletter archives can be found at http://www.erc.montana.edu/Res-Lib99-SW/newsarchives/index.htm.   __________________________________________   Diane Williams  editor of the CBE News Update