Bing Fang and Maria Santore of the Polymer Science Department, along with Vince Rotello in Chemistry and Klaus Nusslein of Microbiology have designed surfaces that control bacterial adhesion. Normally, when a soft object (including bacterial cells) contacts an adhesive surface, the adhesion strength grows in time, so that increasing pulling force is needed to remove the object. The new surfaces developed by this team employ nanoparticle to position surface functionality in configurations that arrest the growth of bacterial adhesion. In this way, targeted bacteria that stick to these surfaces can be manipulated and easily released without surface fouling.