MOTHERS and daughters often solve problems together, but restoring historic Spanish church frescoes using bacteria is rarely on the list of those issues commonly conquered.
The situation is especially unique as it involved Spanish microbiologist Pilar Bosch, who was studying her PhD in how bacteria could be used to restore ancient artworks.
At the same time, her mother Pilar Roig - an art restoration consultant - was struggling to devise a way to restore 18th century paintings adorning the walls of the Santos Juanes church in the city of Valencia.
Roig was stuck on a problem involving removing glue residue from a similar restoration effort 60 years ago, which saw the paintings awkwardly removed from the wall and then hastily reattached with industrial glue.
The pair hatched a plan - work together to solve the issue and not only would Mum achieve her objective, Daughter would have a key research field for her doctoral thesis.
Bosch set to work training bacteria by feeding samples of the glue, which was made from animal collagen, which then in turn produced enzymes that naturally degraded the glue.
Mum and her PhD bub then mixed the bacteria with an algae-based gel, applied to the paintings and after three hours, removed it to reveal pristine, glue-free artworks ready for more detailed restoration.
Is there anything a mum and daughter pair cannot do?
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