Kjellerup to Address Biofilms Conference

University of Maryland civil and environmental engineering associate professor Birthe Kjellerupand Tom Coenye, professor in the department of pharmaceutical analysis at the University of Ghent, will be featured speakers at the 3^rd International Conference on Biofilms, which is being held virtually from May 11 through 16, 2021.

Kjellerup and Coenye are senior editors of the journal Biofilm, a multidisciplinary journal launched in 2019.

The conference, dubbed Asia-Pacific Biofilms 2021, will cover subjects that include characteristics of biofilms, quorum sensing in biofilms, industrially and clinically relevant biofilms, and emerging technologies in biofilms.

The annual event is based in Guangzhou, China, and brings together researchers from China, the Asia-Pacific region, and across the globe. The main organizer of the event, South China University of Technology associate professor Zhenbo Xu, is a visiting assistant research scientist at the UMD department of civil and environmental engineering.

The conference represents a “great opportunity for biofilm researchers not only to present their current work, but to meet colleagues and potentially lay the groundwork for new collaborations on microbial biofilms,” Kjellerup said.

A faculty member at UMD since 2014, Kjellerup conducts research in areas that include microbial biofilms in complex systems such as sediment, soil, urban water systems. She is Pedro E. Wasmer Professor of Engineering at UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering.

Tom Coenye earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Ghent and later joined the laboratory of pharmaceutical microbiology (LPM), part of the department of pharmaceutical analysis, as a postdoctoral research and teaching assistant. In October 2006, he was appointed research professor. The LPM studies the social behavior of a wide range of organisms, including bacteria and funghi, within the context of a wide range of infectious diseases.

Published May 4, 2021