Are microbes the future of pollution clean-up?
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Environmental engineer Ludmilla Aristilde (right) and her colleagues work on developing biotechnology-led solutions to combat pollution.Credit: Benjamin Barrios-Cerda/Aristilde lab
Ludmilla Aristilde has always been aware of how closely tied well-being is to the world around us. Raised in Haiti, she and her family survived two cholera outbreaks stemming from contaminated water. “These were my earliest experiences of realizing that environmental pollution and human health are linked,” she says. “I was really young at the time, but I understood this was a serious thing.”
At 12 years old, she learnt that some environmental damage could be undone. On a school trip to the deforested mountains above Port-au-Prince, Aristilde and her classmates were taught about the impacts of erosion, and they helped to plant around 1,000 saplings in the bare earth overlooking the capital. “It showed us we can do something to reverse the environmental consequences of our actions,” Aristilde says.
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