Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Time: 9:30-10:30AM
Location: Health Science Technology Building (HST), Forum Room 101
This event features Elizabeth Stewart who will talk about "Establishing and Exploiting Biocolloidal Properties of Bacterial Biofilms", as part of the Lehigh University Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering's Spring Colloquium Seminar Series.
Abstract
Bacterial biofilms are structured communities of cells encapsulated in matrix materials that include polysaccharides, proteins, and DNA. Biofilms are ubiquitous in human and animal health, industrial settings, and natural environments. Clinically, biofilms are estimated to be responsible for 65-80% of human infections annually. In my work, bacterial biofilms are studied as a biological soft matter system where the cells are analogous to colloidal particles and the matrix materials are analogous to viscoelastic hydrogels. This perspective allows for relationships between the biophysical properties of biofilms and their functions to be revealed. In this seminar, I use a biocolloidal lens to establish the colloidal microstructure of staphylococcal biofilms. I demonstrate how bacterial cells, biofilm matrix materials, and their microenvironments interact to generate biofilm morphology and mechanics and control dispersion of bacteria from biofilms. Machine learning is utilized to evaluate relationships between the biophysical properties of biofilms and their microenvironments as well as the biophysical properties of cells dispersed from biofilms. Additionally, I highlight recent work to engineer an in vitro biofilm infection model for studying biofilm development at the vascular interface. Findings from our research have implications in the development of antibiofilm therapeutics and novel biofilm control strategies.
About the Speaker
Elizabeth J. Stewart, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute with an affiliate appointment in Biomedical Engineering. She joined WPI in 2018 after completing her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan and postdoctoral studies in the
Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work focuses on establishing and exploiting the physical properties of biocolloidal and biological soft matter systems with an emphasis on bacterial infection prevention and control. She has received funding to support her work from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense. She also has interests in the pedagogy of interdisciplinary learning and professional development within graduate engineering education.
Department/Program:
