biofilms

The most understated portion of the article is that there is a method discovered that can kill biofilms.

How long before the ion bridges were clogged with biofilms, sediment, and other detritus normally present in sea water?

And biocides are not as effective as you'd hope (look up biofilms for one particularly annoying example).

Their method of disabling that particular protein doesn't directly address the problem of the biofilms having a less-permeable extracellular matrix.

Even biofilms don't really generate much toxins, they just leech off the microbes which cause issues.

I have seen articles linking anti-biotic resistance and biofilms to high acidity and seen research that biofilms can be broken up and anti-biotic resistance reversed if acidity is addressed.

The recommended course of action seems to be disulfiram to bust those biofilms + antibiotics to finally kill it all off.

That does seem related, but it suggests something even more unexpected, which is that live bacteria are forming biofilms in arterial plaque.

There's also some research into surfaces that combat the formation of biofilms.

I've read interesting research that suggests that subjecting surfaces to ultrasound discourages the development of biofilms.

The bacteria can form these biofilms in many places, including the tonsils.

Bacteria aren't entirely singled-celled organisms, in real life they extend their cell walls to form larger biofilms and using quorum sensing to manage their population.

Having done the research myself, it seems to be biofilms that the bacteria create leading to a "dormant" yet still metabolically active state that releases inflammatory byproducts throughout the body.

Also, even if they can penetrate biofilms, that doesn't mean you can successfully deliver them to the biofilm in the human body, since they have to survive the whole blood stream and the normal human immune response to "not self" things.

“Dormant bacteria within the biofilm remain[ing] shielded from both the patient’s immune system and antibiotics because they cannot penetrate the biofilm matrix…” Phages can penetrate biofilms [1].

Biofilms (for anyone unfamiliar) are a form of coordination used by bacteria.

Biofilms are also beyond reach of antibacterials usually.