Greg Whiteley1,2,3, Jim Manos1, Arthika Manoharan1, Trevor Glasbey3
1University Of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine & Health, Ultimo, NSW, Australia
2Western Sydney University, School of Medicine, Campbelltown, NSW, Australia
3Whiteley Corporation, North Sydney, NSW, Australia
Introduction
Antimicrobial Resistance is an unresolved challenge for the treatment of bacterial infections. The formation of biofilms is a standard part of the bacterial evolutionary survival strategy by most common human pathogens and commensals. Antibiotic efficacy is compromised by biofilm shielding. This paper reviews seminal Australian biofilm papers and looks into the research of developing treatments of biofilm mediated infections including cystic fibrosis (CF), chronic (and diabetic) leg wounds (CLW), and urinary tract infections including catheter associated urinary tract infections (UTI & CAUTI).
Methods
This paper will review the methods for dry and wet biofilms as applied to biofilms in surface experiments as well as treatment interventions for CF, CLW, UTI and CAUTI. The in-vitro methods are standardized for routine investigations or amended to allow for further variability research which will be outlined with examples.
Results
Wet biofilms methods are different from the methods for dry surface biofilms. The results show that biofilm mediated infections require combinations of clinical methods for both wet and dry biofilm and in-vitro methods must be translated back into the laboratory for validation of potential interventions. Various treatment options available for clinical applications will be outlined.
Conclusions
The differences in biofilm manifestation can be confusing and lead to mis-application of methods and misleading claims arising from wrongly applied methods. The common example of this risk is where wet biofilm methods are applied in place of dry surfaces methods, particularly in complex wounds or infections. This paper outlines progress on research into these common infections.
Biography
Dr Greg Whiteley is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney. He is also an Adjunct Fellow in the School of Medicine at Western Sydney University. Dr Whiteley is also the Executive Chairman of Whiteley Corporation. He is the co-chief investigator of several collaborative research grants into bacterial biofilms and their role in medical device contamination and biofilm mediated infections. HIs latest projects extends research investigations into chronic wound biofilms and separately into biofilms within the urinary tract. He is further working to improve methods for cleaning wipe performance testing.