Research

The problem

Millions of people depend on marine ecosystems for food, income, and daily life. Thousands of oil spills happen in the United States every year. They destroy habitats, poison food supplies, and harm human health. Documented effects of exposure include reduced lung function, heart attacks, memory loss, and confusion.

This is local. Last year, over 3,500 liters of oil spilled into the Christina River Basin at the Port of Wilmington, a 15 minute drive from our school. That basin supplies over 300 million liters of drinking water each day to half a million people.

Existing cleanup methods all carry a cost. Absorbent materials are hard to dispose of and can harm marine life. Booms and skimmers are slow and depend on currents and spill size. Burning oil pollutes the air and leaves oily residue in the water.

Why this bacterium

Alcanivorax borkumensis is halophilic and hydrocarbonoclastic. It evolved to thrive in oil-contaminated water, and its population rises naturally after a spill. It degrades alkanes using alkane monooxygenases, cytochrome P450s, and biosurfactant pathways. It tolerates salt, handles long-chain hydrocarbons, and cultures easily without complex nutrients.

Plastic is the harder half of the problem. Polyethylene resists natural degradation, and few microbes touch it. Studies of the mealworm gut microbiome point to bacteria that can. Comparing those microbes against the native machinery of A. borkumensis opens a path to one organism that handles both pollutants.