Alex Klementiev will be speaking today about his work developing a quantitative method to measure oxygen profiles above biofilms and how antibiotic perturbation effects oxygen profiles.

"Electroactive Measurement of Oxygen in Biological Systems"

Electrochemistry is the study of chemical processes causing electrons to move; in microbiology, millions of biological processes depend on the movement of electrons to sustain life. Among them, the most important is  oxygen reduction. In aerobic cellular respiration, oxygen reduction usually leads to the formation of water. However, subtle nuances exist on the micrometer scale when studying complex microbial communities exposed to oxygen. Oxygen gradients, consumption rates, local availability, and the presence of foreign molecules such as antibiotics all impact how microbes utilize oxygen. In this work we take an aerobe, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and develop a quantitative method to measure oxygen profiles above biofilms. Next we seek to disrupt the bacterial physiology of P. aeruginosa through the addition of antibiotics and observe the effect on oxygen consumption rates as well as oxygen profiles.