Collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy
Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), a DOE Office of
Science user facility, Steven Hallam's lab at the
University of British Columbia has been studying a
microbial community dominated by SUP05, an
currently uncultivated group of microorganisms,
related to gill symbionts of deep-sea clams and
mussels that thrive in the most oxygen-starved
regions of the water column. In a recent study
published online August 29, 2014 in the journal
eLife, Hallam teamed up with another DOE JGI
collaborator, Matt Sullivan of the University of
Arizona, to investigate marine viruses infecting
SUP05 to better understand how viral infection
influences SUP05 ecology and metabolic potential.