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Bacterial biofilms in porous structures: from biomechanics to control

Project description

Insight into microbial biofilm interactions guides future industrial applications

Microorganisms possess the ability to form biofilms, 3D communities such as those found on dental plaque. The scope of the EU-funded BEBOP project is to understand the biophysical mechanisms underlying the formation of such structures in complex environments such as porous media. Using a combination of microfluidics, bioreactor experiments, fluorescence and X-ray imaging, researchers are investigating the underpinning biophysical processes. Dissecting the interactions between biofilms and their environment will provide fundamental knowledge in biomechanics and physical ecology, and also pave the way towards novel biotechnologies for industrial and societal applications, such as wastewater processing and bioremediation of soils.

Objective

The key ideas motivating this project are that: 1) precise control of the properties of porous systems can be obtained by exploiting bacteria and their fantastic abilities; 2) conversely, porous media (large surface to volume ratios, complex structures) could be a major part of bacterial synthetic biology, as a scaffold for growing large quantities of microorganisms in controlled bioreactors.

The main scientific obstacle to precise control of such processes is the lack of understanding of biophysical mechanisms in complex porous structures, even in the case of single-strain biofilms. The central hypothesis of this project is that a better fundamental understanding of biofilm biomechanics and physical ecology will yield a novel theoretical basis for engineering and control.

The first scientific objective is thus to gain insight into how fluid flow, transport phenomena and biofilms interact within connected multiscale heterogeneous structures - a major scientific challenge with wide-ranging implications. To this end, we will combine microfluidic and 3D printed micro-bioreactor experiments; fluorescence and X-ray imaging; high performance computing blending CFD, individual-based models and pore network approaches.

The second scientific objective is to create the primary building blocks toward a control theory of bacteria in porous media and innovative designs of microbial bioreactors. Building upon the previous objective, we first aim to extract from the complexity of biological responses the most universal engineering principles applying to such systems. We will then design a novel porous micro-bioreactor to demonstrate how the permeability and solute residence times can be controlled in a dynamic, reversible and stable way - an initial step toward controlling reaction rates.

We envision that this will unlock a new generation of biotechnologies and novel bioreactor designs enabling translation from proof-of-concept synthetic microbiology to industrial processes.

Host institution

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Net EU contribution
€ 1 649 861,00
Address
RUE MICHEL ANGE 3
75794 Paris
France

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Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Research Organisations
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Total cost
€ 1 649 861,00

Beneficiaries (1)