Talk@BCRT | Dietmar W. Hutmacher (Max Planck Queensland Centre)

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Bioengineering 3D Microenvironments to Develop Clinically Relevant In Vitro Biofilm Models

Arguably motivated by their medical implications, biofilm research has grown exponentially over the last decades, providing insights on the mechanistic processes that lead to biofilm formation. However, current biofilm research is mostly rooted in simplistic in vitro models that fail to capture the physiological growth conditions of biofilms in vivo, often discount the composition and properties of the host microenvironment and overlook the biofilm-host interactions.  The differences between lab-grown- and biofilms that form in clinical settings raise concerns about the clinical relevance of these models, particularly with respect to phenotypic profiles, virulence, and antimicrobial resistance, and they essentially impede bench-to-bedside translatability. In this talk, we examine the most recent biofilm literature and discuss the prerequisite for the development and characterization of biofilm models that better mimic the clinical scenario, and we propose an interdisciplinary outlook of how to bioengineer biofilms in vitro by converging tissue engineering concepts and tools.