[MUSIC] Hello and welcome, Niels. >> Thank you very much. >> So today we'll talk about bacteria, about the two life forms, the planktonic and biofilm growing bacteria. And my first question, Niels, what's the difference between planktonic and, and biofilm growing bacteria? >> A big difference is that planktonic bacteria are single bacteria, which can swim away and are very susceptible for any kind of attack from antibiotics or [INAUDIBLE] and so on. On the other hand when they stick together in aggregates, then they are what we call biofilm bacteria. Then they are much more tolerant or resistant to what I just mentioned. You can, compared with a hand, each finger is not very strong, but together we can really hit or defend ourselves. >> Yeah. And why are these, I mean, these two phenotype is so important in infection microbiology. >> It is because the phenotypes make acute infections. But they may originate from a focus which is a biofilm. So you treat the acute infection, and if there's no films or biofilm, then you get rid of it. But, when, if, there's still is a focus which is a biofilm, then the infection continues and there can be a new spread of the bacteria and a new re-infection. >> Mm-hm. And what about out in a, in the environment, is there a role for both planktonic and biofilm? >> Yeah. If you only had the biofilm bacteria, they will just stay where they were already, and they will grow and grow and nothing else will be able unless you'd crack down the biofilm. But when they are both things, then the planktonic bacteria can escape fit. Some of them will find another area. They will stick to this area surface and form a new biofilm. In that way, they can colonize a big area. And bi and I mean, it's like like a, a single man and, and woman like Adam and Eve. Like, if they stay together, nothing will happen. But when they migrate around, they can colonize the whole world and make new, make new societies. A biofilm is a society of bacteria. >> The, planktonic bacteria has been studied for, ever since Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, but biofilm bacteria, and also the word biofilm. >> Right. >> It's not that old. Why, first of all, why is it called a biofilm? What, what's the word biofilm? >> The world biofilm was originally created in, in technical microbiology. And in my microbiology. Beck in the early former century, 1920 or maybe a little bit later. Where we had the problem of biofouling on chips, and the ships, boats and so on, where there would be growths of various things. And they found out that it started the bacteria who fit were sticking to the surface, and they call that a biofilm. But it came, it stayed in, in technical microbiology, in environmental microbiology, and they found that most of the bacteria for instance, in are sitting on the surface. But they stay there until actually starting in, in clinical microbiology, in my own laboratory. Around 1972 and 3, where we were examining sputum from patients with cystic fibrosis who had a chronic lung infection with. But we found the sputum was completely different from what we have seen in any other infection by microscopy and that was that the infection was sticking together, we called it heaps. The, the work, biofilm, was not doomed by in medical microbiology. I call it heaps and published that paper where we could see these structures. And then I had a cooperation with, with Bill Carlson at that time working in Calgary in Canada. We had, we, we had attending a meeting together, we talked together. He was a, I mentioned I'm a microbiologist and I was a clinical microbiologist MD, we were talking together. And he was talking about environmental biofilms and I was talking about these heaps which makes chronic lung infection. And then we had a long walk and discussed these things and started a cooperation. And I invited him to Denmark, and he was talking about. Not that at that time biofilm, he was talking about cryptic infection. Cryptic like aggregated bacteria. So, that was what it name it at that time. He had published a paper on technical microbiology where he had designed a kind of sending technique based on what he called Robbins device. And but, it was not until in the mid, beginning or mid 1980's that he introduced the biofilm concept, and that was very, very successful. It spread around all of us. We started calling it biofilm infection, cryptic invasion was, you know, you couldn't really understand what, biofilm everybody could understand it was actually, adhering to a surface. The problem is of course, that biofilm infections do not always adhere to surfaces, they are aggregates. So in a way cryptic infection was a very good way to describe it. But it turned out that biofilm infection was the most popular, and so that is what we use now, biofilm meaning the bacteria stay together in aggregated. They may cover surface, but they may also just be aggregates in a tissue without any surface. >> Okay. So we guess that you mentioned 1972. So we started bioflims maybe for, for 40 years plus now. >> Yeah, yeah. Do we know everything about biofilms? >> No, no, no, no. Quite sure, we do not do that. First of all the knowledge of bio-films develops with the techniques which which are available. I mean, if you go back to, to when I started, we had microscopy we had culture bottles and surfaces, and we had electron microscopy. But the big breakthrough was when the confocal laser scanning microscopy came up. And then when it was combined with green fluorescent protein attacked bacteria, for instance. Then we could really see what happens with the biofilm. We could see how different bacteria could come together and make mixed biofilms and so on. And I'm quite sure that when we get new methods, we'll have astonishing new results. So we know what our techniques now are able to tell us, maybe not all of it, but that's what we know, that we are waiting on new techniques. >> So what will the new what, what will the new be within the biofilm fields? >> Yeah, from my point of view as a clinical microbiologist, the astonishing new things would be that we know how the biofilm formation is regulated. And then we then can develop methods and drugs which can interfere with the development of biofilms and maybe break up with biofilms. From a clinical point of view, this would be the most important thing, because biofilm infections, I mean, unless they are on the surface of an intravenous catheter where you can take out the catheter, are very, very difficult to treat. And for many of the infections we have to use antibiotics for the rest of the life of the patient. If we know how biofilm formation is regulated inside the body of the patient, and we have drugs which can interfere or break down the biofilms. Then all the problems of these chronic resistant innfection hopefully will disappear, so this what I'm looking forward to. And from my own point of view I would guess that the results will be clinical available within the next ten years or so. >> Okay, thank you very much Niels. [MUSIC]
