BIOLOGISTS are about to go bug hunting on a grand scale. By tricking bacteria into thinking they are still in their natural environment, they will be able to grow formerly elusive bugs in the laboratory, tapping into a goldmine of genetic information that could be used to make new drugs.
Enzymes isolated from microbes drove the revolution in genomics and molecular biology in the 1990s, with the result that bacteria are now a major source of industrial enzymes and new medicines. But we still know very little about most of the world’s bugs. Of the million or so species of…
