The Department of Microbiology organized a national conference on “Biofilms in nature, industry and environment: Impact and implications” on January 14, 2020. Biofilms are assemblage of microbes that are attached to a surface or to each other by a self-synthesized extracellular matrix. Biofilms are involved in more than half of infectious disease globally and because of the matrix, biofilms are extremely difficult to remove. The distinguished speakers in the conference are working on cutting-edge research area on biofilms. The conference was supported by a Microbiology Society Supported Conference grant which was based on a proposal to Microbiology Society by Dr. Arindam Mitra, Head, Department of Microbiology at Adamas University, India.
The speakers in this conference delivered talks related to mechanisms of biofilm formation and control of biofilms from various environment. Dr. Jayanta Haldar from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research gave a talk on “Engineering biomaterials and antibacterial agents in the era of drug resistance”. Prof. Haldar discussed on the development of novel strategies to tackle drug resistant bacteria with focus on engineering new polymeric materials to tackle antimicrobial resistance and infection. Prof. Chandradipa Ghosh from Vidyasagar University talked on “Biofilm in Infection” Specifically, Prof. Ghosh deliberated on EPS signaling mechanism mediated via quorum sensing autoinducers and flagellar interaction and its influence on virulence expression in Vibrio cholerae, the agent for life-threatening diarrheal disease, cholera. Dr. Ghosh also discussed on investigation of biofilm-virulence association in multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the lethal causative agents for skin and soft tissue infection from hospital settings and antibiofilm approach to minimize such infections. Dr. Srinandan Chakrabarthy delivered a talk “Survival games that biofilm bacteria play” in which he focused on the importance of matrix in Salmonella and E. coli biofilms with experimental evidences and argue that matrix is essential for defining biofilm, devoid of which it is just a collective of cells losing most of the biofilm features. Dr. Arindam Mitra spoke about the roles of Microbiology Society including the membership benefits and how Society have supported many events at Adamas University. A detailed vote of thanks was given by Dr. Manoj Kumar Singh from Department of Biotechnology. More than 200 students participated in this highly interactive conference. All participants provided feedback on conference and received certificate of participation.
