POLYMER ARRAYS FOR BIOFILM ADHESION TESTING

摘要

This invention relates to a method of screening arrays of polymers having pre- determined surface energies. The polymer arrays of the present invention can be used to screen for microorganism adherence. More specifically the arrays can be used to screen for adherence of particular bacteria or fungi to particular polymers in the array. Furthermore, this invention relates to a method combining in-situ polymer synthesis with physico-chemical characterisation of the resulting polymer array and subsequent biological assays of bacterial or fungal adherence. This allows for high throughput screening and characterisation of candidate polymers which are not susceptible to bacterial or fungal adherence or which can be used to support bacterial or fungal adherence where such is required. The arrays can also be used to screen for inhibition or promotion of biofilm formation.