Authors: Jerzee Findlay, Gina Fuller
Mentors: Katrina Twing
Insitution: Weber State University
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are toxic chemicals which were popularly used in electrical manufacturing companies from the 1930s - 1970s and are known to cause significant health concerns for humans even today. These have also been termed “forever chemicals” due to their ability to bind to sediments and soils, which results in difficulties with removal or degradation in contaminated environments. One site of widespread PCB contamination is Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where improper disposal of industrial waste by a General Electric plant has led to chronically contaminated rivers and ponds, even decades later. The aim of this research project is to learn more about the microbial communities that coexist with these toxic forever chemicals, hoping to find evidence that they can degrade PCBs through metabolism. This specific study within the project focuses on microbial diversity of sediment samples collected from the contaminated Woods Pond, located downstream of the Pittsfield General Electric plant.: We performed DNA extractions, PCR amplification, and 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing on an Oxford Nanopore MinION DNA Sequencer. Preliminary data suggest that the samples contain genera known to be associated with PCB degradation, such as Paenibacillus, Clostridium, Rhizobium, and Sphingobacteria. With this understanding, future efforts aim to evaluate the ability of these environmental bacteria to degrade PCBs.