Dr. Ehud Banin, a returning scientist from the University of Washington, Seattle, is a Member of the Nano Cleantech Center at the Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA), and lecturer at the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences. Banin has shown how bacteria under attack by the immune system create biofilms, surface-associated bacterial communities encased in an extracellular polymeric matrix. By revealing the specific pattern of gene expression that allows harmful bacteria to band together and survive in biofilms, Banin is defining an important target in the ongoing fight against antibiotic resistance, as well as for the search for new treatments for biofilm-related diseases such as cystic fibrosis. His laboratory implements an array of physiological, biochemical, and genetic tools combined with novel technologies that allow controlled and reproducible biofilm growth to characterize bacterial biofilms and compare them to the non-biofilm communities.