UAlberta mechanical engineering in hot pursuit of creeping bacteria

(University of Alberta) The growth of bacterial biofilm is problematic when you think of all the liquid flowing through all those miles of tubing at your local hospital or Medi-Centre. The movement of bacteria with flow can lead to the spread of infection. Mechanical engineering professor Aloke Kumar's lab set out to study the formation of the filaments, as well as the conditions under which they begin to break down and finally break off.