Battling Biofilms; July 2001; Scientific American Magazine; by J.W. Costerton and Philip S. Stewart; 8 Page(s)

Pentagon planners concern themselves a great deal nowadays with information warfare. Why? Because interfering with a foe's ability to communicate can be far more effective than destroying its bunkers or factories. In the battle against harmful bacteria, some investigators are considering the same strategy.

The microbes that cause many stubborn infections organize themselves into complex and tenacious films-biofilms-that can be nearly impossible to eradicate with conventional antibiotics. In the past few years, medical researchers have discovered that the microorganisms in biofilms depend critically on their ability to signal one another. Drugs able to interfere with this transmission might then bar the microbes from establishing infections or undermine their well-fortified positions; such drugs might thus combat maladies ranging from the pneumonia that repeatedly afflicts people with cystic fibrosis to the slow-burning infections that often form around medical implants.