The substance Biofilm—which at first sounds like a new kind of plastic wrap – is a microscopic threat that prevents hospital treatments from taking effect.

Produced within the body by certain hospital-borne infections, biofilm essentially combines forces with other infectious organisms to build resistance to certain treatments, and grow “as a community,” says Dr. Don Sheppard, director of infectious diseases for the MUHC.

“Most of us think of single little bugs migrating through the lung, migrating through the blood, doing their own thing all by themselves,” Sheppard explained, “but in reality, we know that’s not the case in 70 per cent of infections.”

Every year, thousands of patients across North America die from a variety of hospital acquired infections, the treatment of which is compromised by the presence of biofilm.

An infected biofilm grows and attaches to the mouth and lung membranes, or devices like IV catheters or artificial hips – the strength of the attachment surpasses that of super glue, Sheppard said.

After it’s attached, the biofilm acts as a barrier, keeping out the body’s own immune defenses and blocking treatment by antibiotics, for example.

“It’s the downside of medicine, that when you know what somebody has and you think you’re giving them the right antibiotic and you’re watching it not work, and you realize you actually have nothing else you can do,” Sheppard explained. “And I want something else I can do.”

Luckily, Sheppard’s team at the MUHC and a team at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children say that they may be developing a way to break through that wall and eradicate biofilm.

As it turns out, sugar molecules make up the substance that bonds the biofilm together. In the middle of the pathways, there is an enzyme that works to cut sugar molecules.

The scientists are now using this enzyme to attack the biofilm—and preliminary tests in the lab and on mice.

“[we have] shown that in test tubes – on our plates—that if we let the organism make a biofilm, we can destroy that biofilm in seconds just by adding those enzymes, because they will chew up the sugar molecules and the biofilm will fall apart,” Sheppard explained.

The potential for this sophisticated and novel therapy is vast, researchers say, and they hope to commercialize it in a few years, if all goes well.