Hendrik commences MSc

Hendrik's Supervisors are:

Primary Supervisor is Frederique Vanholsbeeck

Co-Supervisors are Marco Bonesi and Cushla McGoverin

Below is a description of Hendrik's thesis

Bacteria form biofilms to increase their resistance to antibiotics, and cope with other environmental challenges. Biofilms are a problem in many healthcare and industrial settings, particularly when they contaminate medical devices and implants, as they are difficult to remove through physical or antimicrobial treatments and can lead to chronic infections and repeat surgeries. An understanding of the microrheological properties of biofilms would aid in the strategies to both prevent their formation and treat biofilms that have formed. My MSc project aims to develop a platform to probe the mechanical properties of these biofilms noninvasively. To do so, we will combine two optical techniques, namely Optical Tweezers (OT) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), together with OCT’s functional extensions, to manipulate and measure the deformation of these biofilms.