And so we use a virus that's a non toxic virus called M13 bacteriophage that's job is to infect bacteria.

So replacing the bacteria DNA with virus DNA turns the bacteria into a factory for making viruses that is, until it's so filled with viruses that it bursts.

A virus grabbed onto a bacterium and it slipped its DNA into it.

The main characters in the story are bacteria and viruses.

The way this showed up in the textbook, it looked like this Bacteriophage replication is initiated through the introduction of viral nucleic acid into a bacterium.

But that's not the only way that viruses infect bacteria.

At the end of 1987, the scope of the biological weapons work was further expanded and research into additional bacterial agents, such as Clostridium perfringens and fungal toxins, such as trichothecene mycotoxins, was carried out.

The bottles harboured gram positive cocci, which can lead to skin infections, pneumonia, or blood poisoning.

It takes control of these cells, turns them into virus making factories, and they all burst, a huge, extended bacteria family, all dying with viruses spilling out of their guts, the viruses taking over the bacterium.

The real bacteria and viruses are so small we can't see them without a microscope, and you guys might know bacteria and viruses because they both make us sick.

Don't overdo the Botox nobody will think you're honest.

Because it took a lot of crafty work to infect this bacterium.

Everything is covered in invisible ecosystems made of tiny lifeforms bacteria, viruses and fungi.

And now that we've gotten rid of the bacteria DNA, the virus DNA takes control of the cell and it tells it to start making more viruses.

Okay..mom the camera is rolling.

We can also see blooms of bacteria, blooms of viruses in the ocean.

But what a lot of people don't know is that viruses can also make bacteria sick.

Our first task was a 5,000 letter code bacteriophage, a virus that attacks only E. coli.

The biological weapons programme also began research on other agents, including ricin toxin and Clostridium botulinum spores.

In previous years, microbiological inspections detected most often contaminants as follows increased total or aerobic mesophyllic bacteria, E. coli and faecal streptococcus, while chemical analyses detected organic contents, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, iron, and other toxic matters (disinfection processes by products).

When a secret agent virus infects a bacterium, they do a little espionage.

They have their own tests, of course, and so they tested her for over 70 different assays, for every sort of bacteria and fungus and viral assay you can buy off the shelf SARS, metapneumovirus, HIV, RSV all these.

It was a quite exciting experiment when we just took the synthetic piece of DNA, injected it in the bacteria and all of a sudden, that DNA started driving the production of the virus particles that turned around and then killed the bacteria.

Because farming takes place outdoors and in dirt, such contamination is a fact of life. Over the centuries, the main culprit in mass food poisoning often has been contamination of unprocessed crops by fungal toxins a risk that is exacerbated when insects attack food crops, opening wounds that allow fungi (molds) to get a foothold.

Every year, innumerable packaged food products worldwide are withheld or recalled from the market due to the presence of all natural contaminants like insect parts, toxic molds, bacteria, and viruses. Because farming takes place outdoors and in dirt, such contamination is a fact of life.

She suspected the difference had to do with the mice's gut microbiomes the community of bacteria, viruses and fungi that normally live within the gastrointestinal tract.

In addition, sampling and analysis of the fragments of biological munitions unilaterally destroyed by Iraq revealed the presence of DNA fragments of Bacillus anthracis and Clostridium botulinum.

It's harmful because it produces a toxin, and that toxin is released when the organism gets into our intestinal tract.

It would make these organisms evolve to mildness, so that even though people might be getting infected, they'd be infected with mild strains.

That's a bunch of mice that had been poisoned by our scientist friends down in Texas, at Brooks Air Base, with anthrax.

The remnants of biological munitions which Iraq declared had been filled with Bacillus anthracis, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin were provided to the inspectors for verification.

The next thing is, that virus DNA made stuff that chopped up the bacteria DNA.

Most contaminants are coliform bacteria and faecal streptococcus, and among chemical ones, there are ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, rare heavy metals and other toxic agents.

Moreover, certain viruses size and genetic repertoire is comparable with that of bacteria, archaea, or small eukaryotes. Indeed, the life of giant viruses is as complex as that of like sized microorganisms.

So what happens, if you've got an organism, it produces a lot of toxin.

If the organism produced a lot of toxin, you might find 10 million, or 100 million.

And we found that in Chile within two months of the invasion of Peru you had strains entering Chile and when you look at those strains, in the very far left hand side of this graph, you see a lot of variation in the toxin production.

It was the first DNA phage, DNA virus, DNA genome that was actually sequenced.

If it didn't produce a lot of this toxin, then you might find a smaller number.

It could have lots of bacteria, it could have more than one virus, and it certainly has host genetic material.

We thought, well what if we could sort of do behavior modifications, just make these bacteria so they can't talk, they can't count, and they don't know to launch virulence.

There was something that we encountered, though, that we ended up calling the digital Botox effect.

It's not like a couple bacteria get in you and they start secreting some toxins you're enormous, that would have no effect on you. You're huge.

Those who are HIV negative must know how to stay negative.

So when we think about future technologies, we actually think of using bacteria and virus, simple organisms.