Biofilm

Bacteria tend to build colonies behind barriers known as biofilms, which are hard for antibiotics to penetrate. Now, researchers at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have developed a hybrid antibiotic that can punch through some biofilms.

An incredible study has demonstrated the potential of a wound dressing that can fight bacterial infections using a weak electrical field. Offering a novel way to battle antibiotic-resistant infections, the dressing has been approved by the FDA and is currently being tested in human burn patients.

Tuberculosis is currently curable, but the bacteria responsible for it are fast evolving resistance to our antibiotics, thwarting attempts to keep the disease under control. Scientists have found a new compound that can boost the power of existing antibiotics and even reverse the bugs’ resistance.

An army of tiny robots scuttling about inside your mouth cleaning your teeth. It's a disquieting thought, and yet it might be one of the most effective ways to deal with the sticky bacterial biofilms that coat our choppers – as well as water pipes, catheters and other tough-to-clean items.

Hospital-acquired infections are a serious problem, and the most common type of such infections occurs when catheters are inserted into blood vessels. A new coating, however, shows promise for killing bacteria at insertion sites, keeping them from establishing biofilm colonies on the catheters.

Water used for hand-washing is relatively easy to treat for reuse, and now engineers at ETH Zurich have built and tested a standalone hand-washing station for use in public places and developing countries that can do just that.

Get enough bacteria in one place and they settle down into longer-term colonies, building sticky biofilms that protect them from our best cleaning efforts. But now, researchers from the University of Illinois have designed a technique that uses microbubbles as a scrubber to blast biofilms away.

Forget taxes on imports. If a new scientific development lives up to expectations, the real job creator for the US could lie in harnessing lignin waste. Scientists have found a way to make high quality carbon fiber from it, which could turn industrial discards into a major money spinner.​​​​

The organized gangs of bacteria known as biofilms are notoriously difficult to dispatch, so researchers figured it might be best to stop them from growing in the first place. They focussed their attention on the communication mechanism inside the colony.