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This section provides information about microbial biofilms and their relevance to Industrial, Environmental, and Medical Biotechnology applications.
It is very important to consider ongoing industrial interest in the role of biofilms in biotechnology. The Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University--Bozeman has a very active Industrial Associates program in which companies and agencies interested in biofilms join the program, pay an annual subscription fee, and attend technical conferences semi-annually.
Review and synthesis of the results of this 21-year collaboration provide very interesting insight into the collective interests of a large, diverse group of companies and agencies concerning problems and opportunities associated with biofilms. There are two very broad categories of interest: 1) Controlling Biofilm Accumulation, and 2) Engineered Biofilms. The next two pages focus on each of these categories.