About the Authors

Reindert Nijland

Current address: Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Affiliation Dove Marine Laboratory, School of Marine Science and Technology, Newcastle University, North Shields, United Kingdom

Michael J. Hall

Affiliation School of Chemistry, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

J. Grant Burgess

grant.burgess@ncl.ac.uk

Affiliation Dove Marine Laboratory, School of Marine Science and Technology, Newcastle University, North Shields, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

Based on these findings a UK-patent application has been filed (Burgess JG, Hall MJ, Nijland R. "Compounds and methods for biofilm disruption and prevention" GB1002396.8, 12 February, 2010.) This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RN MJH JGB. Performed the experiments: RN MJH. Analyzed the data: RN MJH JGB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RN MJH JGB. Wrote the paper: RN MJH JGB.