Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting | Ascona 2026

Mechanobiology of Infection

Sunday Speaker Abstracts

SINGLE-CELL IMAGING OF MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES ACROSS DIFFERENT SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL SCALES Jing Yan Yale University, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, New Haven, CT, USA Biofilm is an important lifestyle of bacteria where bacterial cells collectively form surface associated aggregates embedded in a polymeric matrix they secrete. Important in industry and medicine, biofilms also represent a unique form of growing active matter with unique physical and material properties. In this talk, I will highlight our recent work on developing a platform for imaging live, growing biofilm at single-cell resolution, using Vibrio cholerae as the model organism. We showed how bacterial cells physically communicate with each other and the environment to form ordered architecture reminiscent of nematic liquid crystals. Moreover, we discovered that heterogeneity in gene expression leads to unexpected pattern formation in biofilm through a drag-based sorting mechanism. I will also highlight ongoing research in the lab on extending the imaging capability to more natural environments including animal hosts. I will end by showing our recent findings on the biophysical properties of the extracellular matrix that underlie the architecture of the biofilm.

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