Sound medicine at Acoustics Meeting(y in the United States Europe and Asia f...),Health

The talk Cavitation-enhanced ultrasound heating in vivo: Mechanisms and implications in MR-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy (4pBB2) will be at 1:50 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 30.

4) BREAKING BIOFILMS

Single-celled organisms do not always go it alone, as anyone who has ever slipped on a rock at the bottom of a creek bed has experienced. The slippery slime on creek rocks is an example of a biofilma protective slick that single-celled organisms form when they clump together on a solid surface, communicate with one another, and secrete a mucus-like substance.

Biofilms are not just the bane of falling hikers, though. They can form inside pipes and foul the water supplies. Moreover, bacteria like Staph. aureus can form biofilms on medical devices implanted into the human body and cause severe infectioneven death. Because of their mucus secretions, bacteria in biofilms can be harder to kill.

Now E. Carr Everbach (ceverba1@swarthmore.edu) and his colleagues at Swarthmore College have shown that acoustical waves can disrupt biofilms and destroy bacteria. They grew biofilms of a strain of fluorescing E. coli on microscope slides sandwiched between piezoelectric wafers. This allowed them to view the biofilm under a confocal microscope before, during and after charging the wafers, which set up standing acoustical waves on the biofilm. They observed changes in the biofilm structure that showed a mechanical destruction of the film and bacteria. The potential applications of this technique range from personalized water sterilization systems to better ways of protecting against hospital-acquired infections.

The talk Effect of 810 kHz cw ultrasou
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