# Non-Invasive Single-Cell Morphometry and Tracking in Living Bacterial Biofilms

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA · 2021 · $302,199

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Biofilms are cohesive, multicellular microbial communities that are able to adhere to biotic or abiotic surfaces.
The human microbiome contains numerous biofilm-forming bacterial species that help maintain normal human
physiology. On the other hand, more than half of the 1.7 million hospital-acquired infections in the US are caused
by biofilm-forming bacterial pathogens. The biofilm lifestyle is advantageous, because phenotypic diversity and
coordination of cellular behaviors within biofilms provide bacterial populations with emergent capabilities beyond
those of individual cells. For example, biofilms are orders of magnitude more tolerant towards physical, chemical,
and biological stressors, most notably long-term treatments with antibiotic drugs or clearance attempts by the
immune system. However, it remains largely unknown how such remarkable capabilities emerge from the
behaviors of individual cells and the interactions between them. A critical barrier to rapid progress is the inability
of conventional microscopes to resolve micrometer-sized bacterial cells in thick (>10 micrometers) biofilms in a
non-invasive manner. The proposed research addresses this challenge by developing integrated experimental
and computational technologies that enable non-invasive, 3D fluorescence imaging of pathogenic biofilms by
lattice-light sheet microscopy, accurate single-cell segmentation and 3D shape measurements based on the
acquired images, and simultaneous 3D tracking of thousands of cells inside biofilms. The ability to make single-
cell measurements in dense microbial populations will enable researchers to correlate the spatial trajectory of
each cell with that cells’ gene expression and behavioral phenotype. Such information will provide an integrated
understanding of how bacteria coordinate gene expression and social behaviors in 3D space and time. A
fundamental understanding of biofilm biology will help inform new strategies for harnessing the emergent
functional capabilities of microbial populations and for removing pathogenic biofilms from undesired
environments.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10247048
- **Project number:** 5R01GM139002-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Andreas Gahlmann
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $302,199
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-25 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10247048

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10247048, Non-Invasive Single-Cell Morphometry and Tracking in Living Bacterial Biofilms (5R01GM139002-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10247048. Licensed CC0.

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