Report from Eurobiofilms 2011

A considerable number of the world?s leading biofilm scientists are located in Denmark, and given the small size of Denmark it must to be the country with most biofilm researchers per capita! It was therefore appropriate that the Second European Biofilm Conference, Eurobiofilms 2011, was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference was organized by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECSMID) Study Group on Biofilms (ESGB), and aimed to cover basic and clinical aspects of biofilms in order to encourage synergistic interdisciplinary interactions. Therefore, both basic biofilm science and clinically related biofilm science were presented at the joint keynote lectures, and the basic biofilm science symposia as well as clinically related biofilm science symposia were run in parallel. The main program was preceded by four workshops comprising: microfluid systems and confocal laser scanning microscopy; new techniques for visualization of biofilms; animal models of biofilm infections; and molecular diagnostics of biofilm bacteria. The number of attendees exceeded 300, who were from 31 countries on six continents, and more than 200 abstracts were submitted. The conference was opened by a warm welcome from Niels Høiby (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), the president of the conference.