Research
PET plastic degradation
With the growing problem of plastic pollution, both on land and in our oceans, we see the biodegradation of these waste products to be an important part of the solution to this global issue. For her senior thesis Morgan Vague (Reed ’18) isolated three Pseudomonas and two Bacillus species that degrade polyethylene terephthalate, or PET plastic, the material used to make disposable water bottles and other single-use products. Morgan Vague's describing the isolation of the bacteria has over 2 million views. We want to gain a greater understanding of the biodegradation of PET by these bacteria, both biologically and chemically, to make the process more rapid. The genome sequences of the five bacteria, and evidence that they degrade PET plastic in a cooperative manner was published in . The audio book, titled Using Hungry Microbes to Devour Plastic Pollution, can be found on the science communication channel . A discussion of how bacteria are degrading PET plastic in the environment is on the podcast Criss-Crossing SCIENCE, . Our most recent publication in the online journal addresses how the Pseudomonas and Bacillus bacteria are evolving to degrade PET plastic in the environment. This work is funded by NSF RUI collaborative grant .
Pseudomonas and Bacillus bacteria forming a biofilm on PET plastic. Pili formation (yellow and red arrows) by bacteria aid in adherence and biofilm formation (Morgan Vague, Senior Thesis, 2018). Image courtesy of Claudia S. López, PhD, Director Multiscale Microscopy Core at OHSU.
Biorecycling
Nearly 600 billion single-use plastic water bottles are produced every year, of which only a small percentage are recycled. This portion of the project focuses on a novel recycling process to decrease the plastic waste that is currently threatening our planet. We are using a , biologically friendly method to degrade PET water bottles, where terephthalic acid can be recovered from culture media and reused to polymerize new PET products. While we predict that complete degradation is achievable using this method, further experimentation with the bacterial consortium can allow for more circular PET recycling, creating a low-cost technology.
Lab Folks Summer 2026
Senior Research Associate: Sabrina Edwards
Summer Researchers: Fiona Franz, Ginger Priestman, Mira LeGates, Isabel Chrysos, Maddox Robles, and Henry McDonald