{"id":906,"date":"2026-10-01T17:15:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T00:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/?p=906"},"modified":"2026-10-01T17:15:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T00:15:47","slug":"patricio-palomino","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/2026\/10\/01\/patricio-palomino\/","title":{"rendered":"#84: Tiny Plastic Eaters with Patricio Palomino &#8217;25, Biology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"579\" height=\"579\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/10\/Patricio-gourd-blog.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-907\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/10\/Patricio-gourd-blog.jpeg 579w, https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/10\/Patricio-gourd-blog-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/files\/2026\/10\/Patricio-gourd-blog-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 579px) 100vw, 579px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Patricio&#8217;s thesis year was inspired by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/reed-magazine\/articles\/2021\/reed-biologists-plastic-eating-bacteria.html\">ongoing research<\/a> in Professor Jay Mellies&#8217; lab investigating groups of bacteria which can break down plastic. Biology major Morgan Vague &#8217;18&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/reed-magazine\/articles\/2018\/bacteria-eat-plastic.html\">thesis work<\/a> was the genesis for this research. Patricio tells us about his experience counting 40,000 spores individually through a microscope, and about how his research gave him totally different results than he expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reed community members can read Patricio&#8217;s thesis, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/rdc.reed.edu\/record\/33354?ln=en&amp;p=patricio&amp;v=pdf\">A Tale of Two Species: Uncovering the Interactions Between Bacillus and Pseudomonas on PET Plastics<\/a>,\u201d online in the Electronic Thesis Archive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/soundcloud%3Atracks%3A2411582934%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-GgfhtxhDfSq&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true\"><\/iframe><div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/burnyourdraft\" title=\"Burn Your Draft\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\">Burn Your Draft<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/burnyourdraft\/patricio-palomino\/s-GgfhtxhDfSq\" title=\"#84: Tiny Plastic Eaters with Patricio Palomino &#x27;25, Biology\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\">#84: Tiny Plastic Eaters with Patricio Palomino &#x27;25, Biology<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Patricio&#8217;s thesis year was inspired by ongoing research in Professor Jay Mellies&#8217; lab investigating groups of bacteria which can break down plastic. Biology major Morgan Vague &#8217;18&#8217;s thesis work was the genesis for this research. Patricio tells us about his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/2026\/10\/01\/patricio-palomino\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1039,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,33],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast-episode","tag-biology","tag-lab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/burn-your-draft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}