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Bacterial 'bio-films' Could Generate Self - Healing Material
October 22, 2007 at 7:47 PM
General Health News
Bio-films are three-dimensional colonies of bacteria that secrete a starchy covering that protects the tiny creatures from predators, UV radiation and antibiotics.
Scientists believe if these bio-films are woven into building material or fabric, it will be possible to create self-regenerative structures and even clothing.
'Ultimately, we want material that is capable of repairing itself. That led us to slimes and jellies,' said David Bramston, a senior lecturer in product design at the University of Lincoln in the UK.
Bio-films function as a unit, cooperating and communicating to stay alive. They also have entirely different properties from free-floating, so-called planktonic, bacteria.
'The genes that are expressed when they're in a bio-film are very different from the genes expressed in a free-floating state,' said Derek Lovley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Bramston and his collaborator, Ron Dixon, head of forensic and biomedical sciences at the University of Lincoln, have focused their research on the actual material that their bacterial strain, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, often grows on slag from the sewers of England.
By studying the surface contours of the slag, Bramston is attempting to learn to grow better biofilms that he can turn into usable material.
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