1,720,980 research outputs found
National Biofilms Innovation Centre Annual Report 2025
No full textThe National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) Annual Report 2025 covers key achievements to date and future plans
The National Biofilms Innovation Centre Annual Report 2021
No full textThe National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) Annual Report 2021 is now available to download. This report covers our key achievements to date, our future plans for policy, case studies, our international strategy and all of the Proof of Concept (POC) projects that we are funding
NBIC Annual Report 2024
No full textThe National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) Annual Report 2024 is now available to download. This report covers our key achievements to date and our future plan
The National Biofilms Innovation Centre Annual Report 2019
No full textOur Annual Report 2019 is available for download. The report covers our mission and vision, key achievements to date, our future plans for training, project case studies and all the Proof of Concept projects that we are funding
Biofilm methodologies and food sector regulation
Full text linkThis report summarises the outcomes of a cross-sector workshop on Biofilm Methodologies and Food Sector Regulation, held in Nottingham on 6 March 2025, organised by the National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC), the Biofilm Alliance and the Food Safety Research Network (FSRN). The workshop brought together stakeholders from industry, academia, regulatory bodies, and testing organisations to discuss the challenges that microbial biofilms pose across the food supply chain
The national biofilms innovation centre identifying and prioritising industrial challenges and potential solutions for the prevention, detection, management and engineering of biofilms 2018 workshop report
No full textBiofilm prevention report: Workshop report November 2021 -Birmingham UK
No full textThis workshop was aimed at exploring unmet industrial needs and resulting research questions in the field of biofilm prevention.NBIC partner organisations shared their experience and attendees worked in syndicates to discuss the key challenges and ways to overcome the
Biofilm Management: Workshop Report. February 2020 - Nottingham, UK
Full text linkWe hosted our third academic/industry workshop on Biofilm Management in Nottingham on 25 February 2020. We thank all those who attended and contributed to the workshop.Executive SummaryThis workshop was aimed at exploring unmet industrial needs and resulting research questions in the field of Biofilm Management.NBIC partner organisations shared their unmet needs and the 65 attendees (34 from industry) worked in syndicates to discuss the key challenges and ways to overcome them. The main needs which emerged were:Improved models and methods for characterisation, visualisation and detection of biofilms: these should be relevant (real world context), standardised and accessible to industry and academia.Improved cross-disciplinary collaboration (industry to academia but also with regulators and between sectors of industry): through workshops, partner searches and in the development and execution of project proposals and models.Clarification of pathways from industry regulators for solutions, and an enhanced understanding of time frames and associated costs. Support is required in easing the ability to navigate the pathways and influence the standards development. NBIC has a leading role to play here.Understanding biofilm behaviour and control: there remains a need for further effort in terms of fundamental research on understanding biofilm behaviour and control to give us new leads and insights.Data centralisation and management: Large amounts of data are produced using contemporary techniques and the collation, arrangement and interpretation of this and existing data sets via bioinformatics is a compelling need.A range of strategies for addressing these needs were proposed and it was highlighted that NBIC needs to aim to widen its engagement and influence, to develop a broader shared concrete understanding of the problems and the optimum route to solutions. For example, this could include specific lobbying/outreach in areas such as identifying funding that could be released for fundamental research, creating an appropriate regulatory framework and greater public awareness of needs and opportunities
Biofilm Engineering: Workshop Report April 2019 - Edinburgh
Full text linkThis workshop was aimed at exploring unmet industrial needs and resulting research questions in the field of Biofilm Engineering. NBIC partner organisations shared their unmet needs and the 90 attendees (21 companies represented) worked in syndicates to discuss the key challenges and ways to overcome them.Three main needs emerged:i. The need to engineer biofilms for benefit in a human or an animal;ii. Creation of a bespoke biofilm community for a defined process outcome or benefit and;iii. Improved approaches for investigating, enhancing monitoring or studying biofilms in the engineering setting.Challenges to overcome in order to address these needs include:• Developing improved model systems including ‘good’, ‘bad’, in-situ, in-vivo, in-silico (both large and small scale).• The development and standardisation of experimental and monitoring methods including real-time, highthroughput, large scale and multi-variable.• Improved methods for manipulation of an existing biofilm are critical to achieve relevant end products or results.Next Steps1. There is a clear need to bring together more focussed industry/academic groups around the specific industry/ sector related problems and needs in Biofilm Engineering which were articulated in the group outputs e.g. on-site systems for recycling of water in a domestic environment. NBIC should coordinate this along with other interested groups (e.g. IBIOIC, WRC, NIBBS and KTN).2. NBIC should consider and direct how to better influence more structured funding in this area and consider targeting a project call towards Biofilm Engineering.3. The key themes identified should be built into the NBIC strategy relating to Biofilm Engineering.4. NBIC support is needed in specific lobbying/outreach in areas such as identifying and releasing funding for fundamental research, creating an appropriate regulatory framework and greater public awareness of opportunities
Biofilm Detection: Workshop Report September 2018 - Birmingham, UK
Full text linkThe understanding of biofilms is key to discovering, controlling and directing the behaviour of microbial communities for sustainable environmental, engineering, public health and medical applications. The 4 interventional strategies being explored by NBIC and its partners are the prevention, detection, management and engineering of biofilms. This workshop was aimed at exploring unmet needs in biofilm detection. 14 NBIC partner organisations shared their unmet detection needs (see Appendix 1) and 9 of these led syndicates to discuss the key challenges and way forward. There were 39 attendees from industry and 26 from universities/research institutions.A wide number of common themes emerged.Problem owners usually wanted to understand:• Is there a biofilm present?• Where exactly is it? (e.g. location in a wound, a water system or industrial pipework)• What can you tell me about it? (e.g. composition, characterisation and impact)A wide range of possible detection approaches exist and were reviewed (from spectroscopic to biological techniques) and some novel ones were proposed. A key challenge is to adapt these to be usable in an in-situ, point of care context in the industrial or human/medical setting and not just for research, lab or product development investigations.Across all the medical applications where detection was critical e.g. wounds, orthopaedics etc. there was a recognised need for the requirement to be able to detect and confirm the presence of a biofilm in a standardised reproducible manner, using approved protocols that would gain clinical and regulatory acceptance for both primary clinical diagnostic use, and use in controlled trials of anti- or biofilm-promoting interventions. In some settings (medical and otherwise) there was also a coupling between prevention and detection, in that detection becomes a method for assessing the effectiveness of prevention strategies. Additionally, there is a specific need to be able to identify or detect a “healthy” as opposed to an “unhealthy” or disease-causing biofilm, for example, the oral cavity, which was a recurring theme.In industrial applications such as water and filtration systems, detection poses significant challenges relating to access to possibly remote surfaces down or outside pipework in order to locate a biofilm even if in-line sensing is able to detect the presence of one somewhere in the system and that damage may be occurring.In consumer applications around the home then the ability to detect a biofilm in-situ on a surface is a key need. Whilst a number of techniques have the potential to achieve this the key challenge is the creation of easy to use approaches that could be used and interpreted by the consumer.Finally, there was recurring need for wider engagement with consumers, regulators and other stakeholders in the need for both better definition of standards and policy development in the field of biofilms and biofilm detection
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