Different methods for culturing biofilms in vitro

The field of biofilm microbiology, while by no means new, has been experiencing significant “growing pains” as more and more researchers become involved. One of the underlying reasons is the lack of standardized methods for culturing biofilm communities. Many times, the culturing format will be unique to the study in question, resulting in difficulties when other labs attempt to confirm results produced by another lab. Another issue has been the limited utility of different culturing methods for the specific research questions being asked. For example, culturing formats designed to be accessible to microscopy are not always suited for other types of analyses, such as harvesting biofilm biomass for biochemical measurements.