The Houston Research Group Current Research Home > Research > Current Research > Biofilms Home    Research    Education    People

Paul Houston Current Research Photodissociation Dynamics Betaofnu Bimolecular Reactions Imaging Biofilms Completed Projects Ozone OLEDs Vector Correlations HCO Energy Transfer at Solid Surfaces E-to-V ET H abstraction Isotope Separation Complete List of Publications Information for Prospective Graduate Students and Postdocs

Exploration of Biofilms In collaboration with research groups from Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, and Microbiology, our group is exploring the structure and chemisty of biofilms. Two-photon scanning laser microscopy allows us to construct the three-dimensional structure of the biofilm and to learn how these films are so successful at sequestering heavy metal ions. The figure above shows a two-photon fluorescence image of an E. coli biofilm. Z. Hu, P. L. Houston, A. G. Hay, M. L. Shuler, H. D. Abruņa, W. C. Ghiorse, R. Richardson, and L. W. Lion, "Spatial distributions of metals and active biomass fractions in microbial biofilms obtained by two-photon laser scanning microscopy," Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 71, 4014-4020 (2005). pdf format Z. Hu, J. Jin, H. D.Abruna, P. L. Houston, A. G. Hay, W. C. Ghiorse, M. L. Shuler, G. Hidalgo, and L. W. Lion, "Spatial Distributions of Copper in Microbial Biofilms by Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy," Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 41, 936-941 (2007). pdf format G. Hidalgo, A. Burns, A. Hay, P. L. Houston, U. Wiesner, and L. W. Lion, "Functional Tomographic Fluorescence Imaging of pH Microenvironments in Microbial Biofilms with Silica Nanoparticle Sensors," submitted. This work is supported by the Cornell Biogeochemistry and Biocomplexity Initiative and by the Cornell Nanobiotechnology Center