The new microbe, to which Chakrabarty gives the jawbreaking description "multi-plasmid hydrocarbon-degrading pseudomonas," can digest about two-thirds of the hydrocarbons .
The new dressings cut the rate of infection by pseudomonas bacteriaonce the primary cause of burn deathsin half.
These have sharply reduced infection from pseudomonas bacteria, which once killed nearly a third of all burn victims.