Major breakthrough could help detoxify pollutants -- ScienceDaily

Scientists at The University of Manchester hope a major breakthrough could lead to
more effective methods for detoxifying dangerous pollutants like PCBs
and dioxins. The result is a culmination of 15 years of research and has
been published in Nature. It details how certain organisms manage to lower the toxicity of pollutants.
The team at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology were
investigating how some natural organisms manage to lower the level of
toxicity and shorten the life span of several notorious pollutants.

Professor David Leys explains the research: "We already know that
some of the most toxic pollutants contain halogen atoms and that most
biological systems simply don't know how to deal with these molecules.
However, there are some organisms that can remove these halogen atoms
using vitamin B12. Our research has identified that they use vitamin B12
in a very different way to how we currently understand it."

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