Control of Biofilm Infections by Signal Manipulation
The medical miracle of antibiotics is being eroded by the emergence and spread of bacterial drug resistance. This is compounded by the fact that bacterial biofilms are believed to be a common cause of persistent infections, when because growing in biofilm
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Naomi Balaban Editor
Control of Biofilm Infections by Signal Manipulation Foreword by J. William Costerton With 53 Figures, 13 in color
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Naomi Balaban Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine Department of Biomedical Sciences 200 Westboro Rd North Grafton, MA 01536 USA Series Editor: J. William Costerton Director, Center for Biofilms, School of Dentistry University of Southern California 925 West 34th Street Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA
ISBN 978-3-540-73852-7
e-ISBN 978-3-540-73853-4
DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-73853-4 Springer Series on Biofilms ISSN 1863-9607 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007941546 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover Design: Boekhorst Design BV, The Netherlands Printed on acid-freepaper 987654321 springer.com
Foreword
In the well-watered groves of academe, most of us are content to gather worshipful students and technicians in a shady nook to contemplate the eternal verities and to plan extravagant feasts to celebrate our contributions to “knowledge” and to the gradual improvement of the human condition. As one convocation follows another, and as our funding agencies pump billions of dollars into incremental research that fills every possible pigeon-hole in which a gene makes a protein, a small number of intellectual athletes seize a pivotal concept and plunge into the real world. It is this small band of nimble and impossibly brave intellectual halfbacks who win games in the real world, and this book is the result of the drive and intellectual athleticism of its editor and several of her contributors. Bacteria affect humans more than any other life forms with which we share the blue planet, but our understanding of these invisible companions has developed in a staggering pattern, crippled by our panic and consequent shifts of emphasis. When our race was threatened by epidemic diseases, we visualized bacteria as swarms of potentially lethal planktonic cells from which we must remain isolated by sanitation and which we had to kill by immunization and chemical antibacterial compounds. By the time this overriding threat had been obviated, we began to examine natural and pathogenic ecosystems by direct methods, and we were surpris
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