b'INTERDISCIPLINARY WORKSHOPSThe five interdisciplinary workshops we designed and led have seen 236 attendees with an approximate mix of 60:40 academic and industry partners. These have all taken the format of exploring the key unmet needs from industry, how the current state of the science and technology landscape could address these requirements and, in doing so, developed a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges. The outputs from our five workshops are summarised below. Four of these represent our key strategic themes: Prevent, Detect, Manage and Engineer. The fifth is a workshop we ran on Microbe - Metal Interactions in conjunction with the Center for Biofilm Engineering.BIOFILM PREVENTIONIn 2021, NBIC held a workshop aimed at exploringDeveloping innovative approaches for biofilm unmet industrial needs and resulting researchprevention that have the cost and scale needed for questions in the field of biofilm prevention. Preventionend market use (e.g., contrast the scale of surface relates to impacting the early stages of microbialtreatment needed for an implanted pacemaker with adhesion and colonisation events at surfaces and thethe treatment of a whole cargo ship, which are both curtailing of the development of early-stage biofilmsintended to prevent biofilms). so that surface performance is retained. In manyImproved translational funding and activities to commercial fields (e.g., medical, marine and the builtassess the benefits of novel interventions in real environment) this is a primary need and is one of theworld or model systems relevant to the end use. key purposes of their products, for example to prevent colonisation of indwelling or implantable medicalStandards: as with other areas in the field of biofilms devices. It is clear the question concerning the bestthere are a lack of standard methods for testing approaches to prevent biofilm formation remains aand claims generation and often a large difference significant challenge to both academics and industry.between academic and industry models, equipment, Common approaches are aimed at modifying theskills and practice.surface topology or chemistry of the target item or surface. This has resulted in what remain a number of unmet or poorly met needs in the field of biofilm prevention which were explored at the workshop.Key needs that emerged were:The lack of suitable biofilm model systems to evaluate the impact of new approaches in the lab that are relevant and predictive for the end setting. It is clear that an improved understanding of the factors promoting or inhibiting biofilm formation is needed, and how this varies with different species. A much deeper understanding of theAt the workshop, there was a consensus that NBIC was early colonisation mechanisms leading to biofilmwell placed to influence the direction of research in this formation is also required. area, to enhance interactions and collaboration between Knowing how to sustain the impact of a surfaceacademia and industry, and to be involved in arguing treatment with time and as it consequently becomesfor the creation of uniform associated standards and conditioned by its local environment.methods for testing and claims generation.35'