CEE researchers Professor Sallie (Penny) Chisholm and postdoctoral associate Qinglu Zeng have discovered that certain photosynthetic ocean bacteria need to beware of viruses bearing gifts. These viruses are really con artists carrying genetic material taken from their previous bacterial hosts that tricks the new host into using its own machinery to activate the genes, a process never before documented in any virus-bacteria relationship. The con occurs when a grifter virus injects its DNA into a bacterium living in a phosphorus-starved region of the ocean. Read a news release.