Oil spills are a significant threat to marine wildlife and human health. Nature has evolved an effective way to rectify this problem using indigenous bacteria to clean up the oil contaminants. My research focuses on studying the microscale interaction of bacteria with oil droplets to better understand the mechanisms of oil degradation by the bacteria. The picture shows oil-degrading bacteria (gray) finding an oil droplet (orange), forming biofilms around it (green), and eventually breaking it down into harmless compounds.