Preface

Despite the discovery of microbial biofilms as far back as the seventeenth century, in recent years, scientists have increased their attention of these dense colonies of bacteria that pro‐ duce extracellular polymeric substances that bind a community of different microorganisms together and anchor them to both living and inanimate surfaces. Biofilms are not only re‐ sponsible for chronic bacterial infection account for more than 80% of all microbial infec‐ tions of the human body, infection on medical devises, deterioration of water quality, and the contamination of food, but they also can promote remediation of contaminated ground‐ water and soils and they play an important natural role in cycling of nitrogen, sulfur, and metals. The protective nature of the biofilm structure makes the bacteria embedded within them remarkably difficult to treat with antimicrobials; biofilms are resistant to doses of anti‐ microbials 100- to 1000-fold over the minimum lethal dose for microbes outside of biofilms. Hence, understanding "the good and the bad" characteristics of biofilms under diverse con‐ ditions is of great interest.

In this book "Microbial Biofilms: Importance and applications", eminent scientists provide an up-to-date review of the present and future trends on biofilm-related research. This book is divided with four subdivisions as biofilm fundamentals, applications, health aspects, and their control. Moreover, this book also provides a comprehensive account on microbial in‐ teractions in biofilms, pyocyanin, and extracellular DNA in facilitating *Pseudomonas aerugi‐ nosa* biofilm formation, atomic force microscopic studies of biofilms, biofilms in beverage industry, *Staphylococcus* and Salmonella biofilms, wound biofilm and therapeutic strategies, oral microbiome in dental biofilm formation, antimicrobial strategy against mature oral bio‐ film, and novel models to manage biofilms on microtextured dental implant surfaces.

The book comprises a total of 21 chapters from valued contributions from world–leading experts in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Serbia, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, and Turkey. We are grateful to the experts who have provided state-of-the-art valued contribu‐ tions of this book. This book may be used as a text or reference for everyone interested in biofilms and their applications. It is also highly recommended for environmental microbiol‐ ogists, soil scientists, medical microbiologists, bioremediation experts, and microbiologists working in biocorrosion, biofouling, biodegradation, water microbiology, quorum sensing, and many other related areas. Scientists in academia, research laboratories and industry will also find it of interest.

We offer our special thanks and appreciation to Ms. Dajana Pemac, Publishing Process Man‐ ager for their encouragement and help in bringing out the book in the present form. We are also indebted to InTech publisher for their concern, efforts, and encouragement in the task

#### XVI Preface

of publishing this volume. Appreciations are due to our research scholars for their sincere efforts and diligence towards this volume.

#### **Dr. Dharumadurai Dhanasekaran**

Department of Microbiology Bharathidasan University Tiruchirappalli India **Biofilm Fundamentals**

**Section 1**

#### **Dr. Nooruddin Thajuddin**

Department of Microbiology Bharathidasan University Tiruchirappalli India
