 I'm looking at how bacteria can adapt and change over time to cause disease in people. Bacterial diseases are a cause of one in four deaths worldwide. This is in part due because they are capable of adapting, evolving and changing so much faster than what we can. So what I'm trying to look at is a model of bacterial evolution in the lab. I'm using a new model system, a new method of trying to figure out how bacteria can adapt and change. So I'm looking at a bacteria that is very similar to E. coli in people. It's a mouse version of E. coli and causes a very similar type of disease in mice as it does in people. I watch the spread of this mouse version of E. coli through mice. So they infect each other in a similar manner as what people infect other people. And so I'm watching this in a very controlled setting to find out how the bacteria are changing as they go through different animals. Then I'm trying to figure out how the bacteria has then changed over time. So if it's become more dangerous, less dangerous, is it better able to infect more people or is it less able to infect? There's all these sorts of questions that we really don't know the answer to yet. If we can figure out what's going to happen before it happens then hopefully we can figure out some methods of trying to stop it from happening, trying to stop these diseases from getting worse.