Recent advances of EU's FP7 project killospill - Integrated biotechnological solutions for combating marine oil spills

Oil spill disasters remain a serious worldwide problem. An integrated approach considering at the same time: (i) metabolic requirements of biodegrading organisms alongside the properties of the oil. (ii) enviromnental limitations on oil biodegradation and (iii) innovative delivery mechanisms for agents that alleviate these bottlenecks is critical for further developments in this area. This is the essence of the FP-7 project KilloSpill. It represents a European initiative fully committed to tackle oil spill disasters in an integrated and interdisciplinary fashion employing highly efficient bioremediation strategies. In this work, besides a brief overview of the KilloSpill project, recent advances in specific areas are presented in detail. These include: (a) novel biostimulants for remediation of beach sand contaminated with crude oil. (b) effect of biosurfactants addition oil bioremediation rates of weathered crude oil in seawater. and (c) novel approaches to bioremediation of contaminated sediments via the "KilloSpill snorkel" prototype.