Roberto Rusconi

Biofilms are bacterial communities, generally associated with a surface or an interface and embedded in a matrix of self-secreted extracellular polymeric substances. Two major features of biofilms reflect their broad implications in industrial and clinical settings: the extreme difficulty of removing them from nearly every surface and their dramatically increased resistance (up to 1000-fold) to a wide range of antibiotics, relative to planktonic cells of the same species. The former property, for example, can reduce the efficiency and accelerate the corrosion of pipelines in water supply systems, causing equipment damage and the need for frequent and costly maintenance; the latter makes biofilms the most common cause of persistent and chronic infections. Roberto’s research combines microfluidics and mathematical modelling and is broadly aimed at understanding the formation of bacterial biofilms in response to environmental conditions, including physical forces and chemical cues. Other areas of interest include the fluid mechanics of microorganisms and biological systems, the physics of active suspensions, and the development of novel microfluidic tools for ecological and biomedical applications.

1. Rusconi R, Guasto JS, Stocker R. Bacterial transport suppressed by fluid shear. Nature Physics 10:212–217 (2014).
2. Rusconi R, Garren M, Stocker R. Microfluidics Expanding the Frontiers of Microbial Ecology. Annual Review of Biophysics 43:65–91 (2014).
3. Lecuyer S*, Rusconi R*, Shen Y, Forsyth A, Vlamakis H, Kolter R, Stone HA. Shear stress increases the residence time of adhesion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Biophysical Journal 100:341–350 (2011).
4. Rusconi R*, Lecuyer S*, Guglielmini L, Stone HA. Laminar flow around corners triggers the formation of biofilm streamers. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 7:1293–1299 (2010).
5. Rusconi R, Stone HA. Shear-Induced Diffusion of Platelike Particles in Microchannels. Physical Review Letters 101:254502 (2008).