Synthetic organic dyes are an extremely important class of compounds that are intimately linked to modern life, and are used in numerous industries such as food, textile, paper, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Upon release to the environment, the majority of these dyes not only impart color to water bodies (even when present in small quantities), but directly impact aquatic and non-aquatic life due to their carcinogenic nature. Removal of dyes from wastewaters has drawn a great deal of attention in the last few years and various approaches have been developed to address it. Literature survey on this topic has revealed the importance of biochemical approaches for handling the transformation of dyes to smaller, and more environmentally friendlier molecules. The various enzymes, microorganisms and other species studied for this purpose have been isolated from different matrices, such as soil and plants. This review focuses the biochemically assisted transformation methods which are presently being explored to tackle the problem of removing these organic pollutants from aqueous solutions. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.