Biofilms are responsible for billions of dollars in production losses and treatment costs in the industry every year. Biofilm-related problems are major concerns in the food industry where they can cause food spoilage or poisoning, in health industry because of pathogens' persistence and dispersal, or in the oil and water industry where they cause corrosion. Assuming that the environment is already over-saturated with harmful chemicals such as biocides, whose long term health effects remain to be elucidated, there is a great need for novel solutions to reduce detrimental biofilm effects.

To reduce the use of biocides, the INSA-Lyon iGEM team aims to engineer bacterial "torpedo" capable of infiltrating and destroying biofilms formed on industrial equipments, pipes or reservoirs. Industrial surfaces will then be protected from further deleterious contamination by either a surfactant coating, or the establishment of a protective biofilm.


Bacillus swimming into a biofilm
Our experimental model consists of Staphylococcus epidermidis as the detrimental biofilm, and Bacillus subtilis as the "Biofilm Killer" agent. Three complementary modules will be constructed to arm our "Biofilm Killer" strain:

Bacillus strains are non-pathogenic, and do not cause equipment degradation by corrosion: their settlement on surfaces represents a biocide-alternative strategy to prevent the formation of new dangerous biofilm. This project provides a potential economy, and environmental friendly solution for the control of unwanted biofilm.