Busy in Bacterial Biofilms - Denis Routkevitch

So far, our trip to Belgium has been packed. During the week, we are all busy working at IMEC on our projects. My project is using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy to study bacterial biofilms. Biofilms are an especially nasty type of infection in which the bacteria form an extracellular matrix around them that provides them with several advantages including intercellular communication, protection from environmental threats, and resistance to many treatments. Bacteria can form biofilms in many inconvenient locations, such as in bioreactors and medical implants. They are hard to detect at first, and once developed, can cause many problems in their host system. It would be very useful to have a device that could detect the infection as it happens so that it can be treated earlier and thus more effectively.

We are trying to accomplish this using a technique called electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), in which a sample is exposed to an alternating voltage at many different frequencies. The response of the sample is measured, providing useful information on the electrical properties. All cells, including bacteria, have unique electrical properties that can be detected using this technique. A small chip capable of performing EIS could theoretically be installed in a bioreactor or medical device to provide real-time alerts of a possible infection.

So far, we have mostly done measurements of bacterial growth and their response to treatment the way it has been done for years: by serially diluting a sample and seeding several of the dilutions on agar plates to count the colonies. Each colony corresponds to one living bacteria in the original sample. We are doing this to be able to correlate our EIS measurements with trusted results to test the accuracy. Yesterday, I ran my first EIS experiment and still need to analyze the data. I really hope the results make sense!

Besides  work, last weekend I visited Amsterdam (photos attached). My roommate’s sister and her fiancé live there, so I visited them along with another friend working in Europe. We went to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum, containing works by Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh (what a surprise) in addition to exploring the city. There was a Russian trio playing Vivaldi outside the Rijksmuseum, as evidenced by the accordion and bass balalaika. All in all, I thought Amsterdam was a a beautiful city and I will definitely be back.