Their recalcitrance (difficulty to degrade) has earned PFAS a reputation as "forever chemicals"—permanent contaminants in the environment and in our bodies.

Loeffler and his team's finding that bacteria can incorporate these recalcitrant global contaminants into their cell membranes counters that fatalistic idea. The bacterial process identified in the research paper could contribute to cleaning up environmental PFAS contamination, although final disposal of the chemicals is still an unsolved issue.

The fact that they are using it doesn't tell whether that's a good or a bad thing. We also "integrate" some artificial chemicals in our tissues instead of using the naturally produced, but most of the time that results in us getting ill.