Combating Bacterial Biofilm:

Hello, my name is Shriya Bhat and I attend the IB World School at Plano East Senior High School. I am highly passionate about microbiological and biomedical research and have been competing and winning in science fairs for the past ten years. I am a life-long fellow of the American Junior Academy of Sciences and will be presenting this research at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) this May. 

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A couple of years ago, my cousin succumbed to Cystic Fibrosis, a deadly respiratory disease in which the body produces thick and sticky mucus that can clog the lungs and obstruct the pancreas. Patients with Cystic Fibrosis are immunocompromised, meaning that they are much more likely to contract severe infectious diseases caused by bacteria that produce biofilm. Thus, it was no surprise that my cousin's autopsy showed an abundance of bacterial biofilm in her left lung. I was aware of antibiotic-resistant diseases in the past, but never of bacterial biofilm. Following my cousin's death, I did some more research, and I found that bacterial biofilms pose a serious threat to global health. Bacterial biofilm causes chronic wounds which affect 6.5 million people in the US alone, as well as recurrent urinary tract infection which affects 150 million people worldwide. Furthermore, among several mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance, I found that bacterial biofilms were becoming increasingly problematic, as they were growing resistant to our conventional antibiotics. However, current methods of eradicating bacterial biofilms such as chlorination, UV radiation, and flushing lack both effectiveness and safety. Thus, I aimed to search for a cost-effective approach to eradicating and inhibiting bacterial biofilm, which is the purpose of my project.