Christopher Piccolo

Christopher Piccolo

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Christopher Piccolo Email

Credits:

Christopher Piccolo, Joshua J. Davis, Hyder Alikhan, Kyle Morrow, Samuel W. Foster, Lark J. Perez, James P. Grinias

Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028

Low-Cost Platform to Assay Bacterial Biofilm Formation in Flow

Bacterial biofilm formation is a serious consequence of a number of diseases. The increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria strains makes understanding the fundamental processes behind this formation a critical aspect in designing new strategies for limiting biofilm growth. Existing methods to measure biofilm formation suffer from lengthy assay times (48-72 hours) and limits on the ability to study the process under flow conditions that better replicate in vivo conditions. By employing low-cost 3D printing and open-source microcontrollers, a new microfluidic platform for real-time monitoring of biofilm formation under flow conditions has been developed. 3D printed molds are used to cast PDMS microfluidic devices that contain a parallel array of replicate serpentine channels with dimensions on the order of 200 μm. The inlet of the device is connected to a reservoir of cell culture media containing Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is delivered to the device using gravity flow. The outlets of the device are connected to a droplet counter array (controlled by an Arduino Mega) as a simple method of tracking decreases in flow rate that occur due to biofilm formation within the microfluidic channels. Approaches to using this device to identify a “time-to-clog” marker that can serve as a key attribute of biofilm formation studies are described in this presentation.