Bioremediation is a set of methods that exploit the metabolic capabilities of microorganisms, plants, or their enzymes to transform, detoxify, or remove environmental contaminants from soil, water, sediments, or air. Approaches include intrinsic bioremediation, where indigenous microbes degrade pollutants without intervention, and engineered strategies such as biostimulation (addition of nutrients or electron acceptors) and bioaugmentation (introduction of selected strains or consortia). Target contaminants commonly include hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, pesticides, heavy metals (via transformation or immobilization), and emerging pollutants, with process design guided by site-specific geochemistry, microbial ecology, and kinetic constraints to achieve regulatory cleanup endpoints.
You might not know it, but the hot water and rocks deep within Earth are teeming with undiscovered life. Dr. Tanvi Govil is one of the biologists studying this new frontier of microbial life that thrives in extreme places.
Environment
May 26, 2026
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Advances in DNA sequencing have expanded our view of the microbial world, but the inability to cultivate most microbes has been a major constraint. Now, a systematic, predictive framework that combines existing genomic and ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 11, 2026
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Millions of tons of plastic waste accumulate in landfills and oceans every year. One promising response is to engineer microbes to break the plastic down into useful chemical building blocks. However, teaching a bacterium ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 4, 2026
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When scientist J. Craig Venter and his team announced in 2010 that they had created the first cell controlled by a fully synthetic genome, it marked a turning point in how scientists think about life.
Biotechnology
May 3, 2026
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Dinosaurs are among the most majestic and iconic animals to have ever walked on our planet. While they are now extinct, they are estimated to have inhabited Earth for over 165 million years.
Geologists have solved the mystery of the disappearance from the geological record, millions of years ago, of one of North America's most important waterways: the Colorado River. A paper published in Science shows that the ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 17, 2026
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Researchers have identified more than 600,000 microbial proteins capable of breaking down natural and synthetic plastics, revealing a far broader biodegradation potential across microbes than previously known.
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 15, 2026
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103
Microplastics and nanoplastics are tiny plastic particles that result from the breakdown of larger plastic products due to sunlight, waves, and other environmental conditions. In recent years, these particles have been increasingly ...
Environment
Apr 14, 2026
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298
In a study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Nagoya University researchers demonstrated that native soil bacteria, when treated with decoy molecules, can degrade non-native compounds, including persistent ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 9, 2026
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University of Tennessee Knoxville professor and Goodrich Chair of Excellence in Civil Engineering Frank Loeffler and his co-authors published new research on the environmental impacts of "forever chemicals" in Nature Microbiology. ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 6, 2026
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