Industrial Interest in Biofilms
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.
Figure 1 shows the 2007 membership (23 members) which includes companies and agencies in HealthCare, Biomedical, Pharmaceuticals, Specialty Chemical, Petroleum, Water, and others.
Figure 1. Center for Biofilm Engineering Industrial Associate Members.
Figure 2 shows the total Industrial Associate membership (73 member) during the period of 1986-2007 by category of interest. During this 21-year period the CBE has collaborated with these diverse companies and agencies on a wide variety of biofilm-related issues. These collaborations have generated a data base of industrially-relevant biofilm research and testing results which has been recorded in numerous project reports, theses, and journal publications.
Figure 2. Industrial Associate Members by Industry.
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.