Detoxifying Our Future

Detoxifying Our Future

At the current rapid rate of population growth, industrialization and urbanization, we are faced with an onslaught of pollution related issues. Air, water and soil pollution heavily affect our health and the ecosystem. As we develop strategies to offset these growing issues, mycoremediation stands out as a tremendously beneficial practice. Applying fungi and related products for remediation of environmental pollutants is a cost effective and eco-friendly method over other conventional bioremediation methods. Pollutants such as agricultural, heavy metals, pharmaceutical wastes, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH, released from burning coal, wood and petroleum) have extremely harmful effects on humanity's health and the environment.

Research from recent studies shows that some fungi "secrete various extracellular ligninolytic enzymes, such as laccase, lignin peroxidase, and manganese peroxidase". Due to structural similarities to lignin, these enzymes can metabolize substrates like PAH. Fungi are the most efficient route of heavy metal remediation, due to their relatively higher tolerance to heavy metals over algae and bacteria. We can apply different strains of fungi to manage these pollutants and more application testing needs to be done for us to figure out the most efficient methods. Mycoremediation is an important relationship for humanity to harness while we become more and more uncomfortably certain of our toxic impact on the environment. Uniting with our fungi allies to target and transmute toxins is a symbiotic relationship that we aim to standardize and cultivate. Let's work together to clean up our mess!

If you would like more information on up to date mycoremediation research, read this study!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215017X19307003

For ways to get involved in mycoremediation locally and globally stay tuned with MyceliOhm on all platforms, and check out our website MyceliOhm.com.

Mycoremediation: Expunging environmental pollutants

sciencedirect.com