Among the most stubborn legacies of industrial chemistry are PFAS — molecules so stable they have earned the name 'forever chemicals,' accumulating in soil, water, and living tissue with no natural exit. Susanna Maisto, a doctoral chemist at Yale University, has spent five years pursuing not containment but destruction, developing a method that chemically transforms PFAS molecules until they can no longer hide in water and can finally be broken apart. Her work, defended in July 2026, points toward a future where manufacturers intercept contamination at its source rather than leaving communitie