A still increasing interest and emphasis on the sessile bacterial lifestyle biofilms has been seen since it was realized that the vast majority of the total microbial biomass exists as biofilms. Aggregation of bacteria was first described by Leeuwenhoek in 1677, but only recently recognized as being important in chronic infection. In 1993 the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) recognized that the biofilm mode of growth was relevant to microbiology.

This book covers both the evidence for biofilms in many chronic bacterial infections as well as the problems facing these infections such as diagnostics, pathogenesis, treatment regimes and in vitro and in vivo models for studying biofilms.

This is the first scientific book on biofilm infections, chapters written by the world leading scientist and clinicians. The intended audience of this book is scientists, teachers at university level as well as clinicians, basically all who would like to learn about and how to treat biofilm infections.


Thomas Bjarnsholt has edited this volume together with his co-editors Peter Østrup Jensen, Niels Høiby and Claus Moser. Thomas Bjarnsholt has within the last years contributed significantly to biofilm research, especially the central role of aggregating bacteria in chronic infections. He has a combined position at University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital. Due to this Thomas has both a scientific and applied approach to the role of biofilms in chronic infections. This has also been his approach for planning and editing this book, combining both the clinical and the research perspectives of biofilm infections.