Davies home page Biological Sciences BU research Researcher unravels the secrets of slime David Davies explores ways to block communication in biofilm colonies David Davies, assistant professor of biology, researches the evolutionary adaptability of bacterial colonies known as biofilms to discover ways of transforming their destructive properties into useful processes that can protect the environment from disasters such as oil spills. Nonetheless, he is learning a foreign language and studying new cultures as a way of understanding the objects of his scientific curiosity. Among the oldest lifeforms on the planet, biofilms are communities of individual microorganisms that are created when bacteria on the surface of just about everything become embedded in a gelatinous structure of their own making.
Dental plaque is one commonly encountered biofilm.
And, anyone who has ever been up-ended by slippery rocks in a stream likely has had a close encounter with a biofilm. If such minor calamities were the worst thing about biofilms, probably no one, including Davies, would pay much attention. But the negative effects of biofilms can be tallied in both dollars and lives. They lurk on the surface of prosthetic and implanted devices such as pacemakers, artificial hips and intrauterine devices. Also linked to heartburn, ulcers, and intestinal and stomach cancers, biofilms can be impervious to immune system attack and are insensitive to treatment by most antibiotics.