Date of Submission
Spring 2020
Academic Program
Chemistry; Physics
Project Advisor 1
Paul Cadden-Zimansky
Project Advisor 2
Christopher LaFratta
Abstract/Artist's Statement
Bacterial biofilm formation is a major public health issue, especially in healthcare settings and the food industry. When bacteria attach to surfaces (say, a catheter or water treatment pipe), they secrete numerous virulence factors and other adhesion proteins that encourage free-floating bacteria to agglomerate and form a film. Once a film has formed, antibiotics become much less effective and the potential for pathogenicity grows. Over the course of this project, I sought to understand how that bacterial attachment can be externally modulated through the electrochemical tuning of conductive polymeric surfaces. In this thesis, I will do three things: 1) review some of the foundational knowledge that biologists, chemists, and physicists have accumulated about bacterial attachment, biofilm formation, and ways to fight it, 2) discuss experimental progress on electrochemically controlled biofilm attachment, 3) suggest further experimental avenues that may shed light on some of the questions raised in the review.
Open Access Agreement
On-Campus only
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Richman, Ethan J., "Electrochemical Modulation of Bacterial Biofilm Formation" (2020). Senior Projects Spring 2020. 28.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2020/28
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
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