A Bangladeshi scientist has led a researcher’s team to successfully show the feasibility of cleaning up soil contaminations.

Dr. Abidur Rahman and his research team in Japan worked on plants’ molecular mechanisms to absorb soil contaminants. He used the phytoremediation technique, which is the direct use of living green plants for the removal, degradation, or containment of contaminants in soils.

The finding was announced by Japan’s Iwate University.

“For the first time in the world discovered the potassium-independent cesium transporter and have shown the feasibility of cleaning up the contaminated soil using phytoremediation technique,” the university said in a statement.

The team’s findings were published in the international science journal Molecular Plant on February 12.

According to Dhaka Tribune, Dr. Rahman, who has a state-of-the-art lab named after him -- The Abidur Lab - at the Iwate University's Agriculture Faculty, along with his research team discovered two binding proteins – ABCG33 and ABCG37 – which help plants’ uptake of cesium independent of potassium.

The researchers belonged to Iwate University, Shimane University and the University of Tokyo.

Dr. Rahman, who was a former senior postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts and served Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, has been teaching at the Department of Plant Bio Science of Iwate University.

He sits on the editorial boards of three prestigious science journals.

The Abidur Lab is engaged in, among other things, understanding the role of auxin (plant hormone) in the growth of plants' roots. A better understanding, he hopes, will give them inroads to develop drought-tolerant crop varieties.