| TECHNOLOGY |
A radiation-resistant bacterium that might help clean up heavy-metal & organic contaminants in the soil at radioactive waste sites is being developed.
The researchers engineered the most radiation-resistant organism known, the bacterium "DEINOCOCCUS RADIODU
RANS", to grow in radioactive environments contaminated by the highly toxic Hg(II) ion. They accomplished this by inserting the genes encoding an enzyme system that reduces Hg(II) to less toxic elemental Hg. In the lab, the engineered microbes grow in the presence of both radiation & Hg(II) ions at concn well > those found in radioactive waste sites
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