Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division Director Susannah Tringe was quoted in a Discover magazine feature on harnessing bacteria’s knack for breaking down material that other organisms can’t to clean up tricky messes—from oil spills to plastic waste to corpse-stained marble.

At the most basic level, all organisms are looking to break down something they can get energy and carbon from, Tringe explained. “If you can just develop a microbial community that learns how to break down the stuff that you want to get rid of, then you can kind of let them do the work,” she said.

As the article notes, Tringe is part of a research effort to better understand the microbial communities involved in treating wastewater from the oil and gas industry.