AVS 59th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Biofilms and Biofouling: Marine Medical Energy Focus Topic Thursday Sessions
       Session MB+BI-ThM

Invited Paper MB+BI-ThM4
Robustness Analysis of Biofilm Antibiotic Tolerance

Thursday, November 1, 2012, 9:00 am, Room 23

Session: Biofilms and Biofouling in Medicine
Presenter: R.P. Carlson, Montana State University
Correspondent: Click to Email
Biofilms are ubiquitous and are thought to be involved in more than half of all medical infections. Even after decades of investigation, the in vivo efficacy of many antimicrobial strategies is still debated suggesting a need for better understanding of biofilm antimicrobial tolerances. The robustness of biofilm antibiotic tolerance to medically and industrially relevant culturing perturbations was characterized. By definition, robust systems return similar, predictable responses when perturbed while non-robust systems return very different and potentially unpredictable responses. Biofilm antibiotic tolerance was found to vary in unpredictable manners based on modest perturbations in culturing conditions. The predictability of an antibiotic tolerance response is essential to developing, testing, and employing antimicrobial strategies. The collective data represents both challenges and opportunities for the rational design of anti-biofilm strategies. The data demonstrates that biofilms can be countered effectively with some antibiotics if the appropriate environmental conditions are applied however, if inappropriate conditions are applied, the efficacy of the treatment can be negated. The results indicate it is essential to evaluate antimicrobial strategies over a range of perturbations relevant to the targeted application so accurate predictions regarding efficacy can be made. In addition, the highly dynamic antibiotic tolerance responses observed here may explain why some current antimicrobial strategies occasionally fail.