“A genetically modified bacterium can break down chemicals in nylon and turn them into useful products, which could one day help us recycle clothes and fishing nets,” reports the New Scientist:
Nylons, or aliphatic polyamides, are plastics that are widely used due to their high durability and tensile strength, but their recycling rate is below 5 per cent. “Production is around 10 million tonnes per year, but at the moment there’s basically no recycling,” says Nick Wierckx at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany. “Even incineration is difficult because you get cyanides when you burn them. The vast majority ends up in landfill.”
Wierckx and his colleagues have used a combination of genetic engineering and laboratory evolution to create a strain of the bacterium Pseudomonas putida that can break down the various compounds that are produced once nylon has been dissolved and turn them into something useful. The bacterium is already known for degrading oil-based materials and breaking down oil in spills….Wierckz and his colleagues took a strain known as P. putida KT2440 and gave it genes to help it metabolise various chemicals in dissolved nylon.
A “supergut” made from a superworm’s biome rapidly devours plastics.
Scientists have engineered a virus that steals proteins from the HIV virus, hoping to use it to eliminate AIDS.
A cancer-fighting substance was found in bird poop by a middle-school student.
A company is using microbes and air to make a meat substitute.
Methane-eating microbes are being sold to Whole Foods to make fertilizer and reduce pollution.
Genetically-engineered skin bacteria keep some mosquitoes away.
A virus is being used to cure deafness in new gene therapy.
