Fellow unites bacteria with a robot to remove toxic PCBs from the environment
Studying biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech, MJ Rice watched her peers hack bacterial DNA to make the surface of their cells display certain proteins. This inspired her to take advantage of the technology herself.
She’d recently learned about toxic chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. PCBs were used in many products, like electrical equipment and plastics, until they were banned in 1979 for their adverse health effects in animals, including humans. But PCBs are hardy contaminants, and remnant PCBs still threaten the safety of seafood and health of marine ecosystems in Chesapeake Bay today.
“Stopping contaminants at the source is not enough because there are some, like polychlorinated biphenyls, that don’t break down naturally and require active removal,” Rice says. “These are the contaminants that interest me the most.”
As a Virginia Sea Grant graduate research fellow, Rice is using bacteria to grab PCBs from the Bay. She’s already figured out how to alter bacterial DNA in a way that makes the surface of their cells display proteins that bind to PCBs, but realized her bacteria need a vessel.
