In an age of antibiotic resistant infections, the study of biofilms is increasingly important. Microbes more than often exist in complex multi-species or polymicrobial communities, making infections difficult to detect, diagnose and treat. Given the increased focus on studying biofilms in research and laboratory settings, particularly under conditions that closely mimic the clinical state, it is important to get an overview of the recent methods, model systems and tools being developed and employed in this context.

This book offers readers the opportunity to learn more about current methods being used in the investigation of multi-species biofilms, both in vivo and in vitro. For this, the book highlights new technologies built and designed for the study of multiple species within biofilm communities, including those that can be leveraged for the evaluation of antimicrobial treatment approaches. The application of these state-of-the-art techniques to further our understanding of multi-species biofilms will be discussed and the reader will learn how the clinical microenvironment and the development of biofilm communities are considered when developing such tools.

With cutting-edge contributions from experts in the respective domains, this book will benefit translational and basic research scientists, as well as clinicians, and is an informative resource for educators and their students.

Originally from the UK, Sophie E. Darch completed her BSc in biomedical sciences at Lancaster University, followed by an MSc in medical microbiology at The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. During her PhD she started to focus on bacterial diversity and communication in the cystic fibrosis lung at the University of Nottingham. After graduation she relocated to the United States and became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, followed by the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her love for biofilms continued throughout her postdoc, and since January 2019, she has been an Assistant Professor in the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida. Now in her own lab, she uses methodologies to observe and analyze bacterial aggregates in real-time, in three-dimensions and at the micro-scale.