Bacteria for washing clothes

2001/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Mikrobiologia

In the ads of detergents we often hear: “and the bacteria, what?” That is, remove the obvious dirt but that bacteria remain in it. In the future, however, you may want to say the opposite, that is, that in addition to removing mud, bacteria also die and it is necessary to solve this problem.

In fact, the team led by Alex Fowler of the University of Massachusetts wants to use bacteria to eat dirt from clothes. To carry out the research a cotton plant was selected that is currently used to make the strings. In the hollow fibers of cotton, E. coli bacteria were introduced and soon after fiber was captured by a bacterial colony. The genes of bacteria can change to eat the selected molecules: for example, odour producing molecules, sweat forming molecules, etc.