Caltech researchers have been able, for the first time, to watch viruses infecting individual bacteria by transferring their DNA, and to measure the rate at which that transfer occurs.

Nearly all motile bacteria can sense and respond to their surroundings through a process called chemotaxis, which begins with proteins known as chemoreceptors. Now researchers at Caltech have built the first model that depicts precisely how chemoreceptors and the proteins around them are structured at the sensing tip of bacteria. Because chemotaxis plays a critical role in the first steps of bacterial infection, a better understanding of the process could pave the way for the development of new, more effective antibiotics.

A team of researchers at Caltech has devised a new method for making complex molecules. The reaction they have come up with could open up new avenues for the development of novel pharmaceuticals and natural products from chemotherapeutic compounds to bioactive plant materials such as morphine.