The Biosciences Area’s Nathalie Elisabeth and Jean-Marie Volland collaborated on a study led by researchers from Cornell that produced the first full genome of a species of giant bacteria. Members of the Epulopiscium genus, the largest known heterotrophic bacteria, are a million times larger than E. coli. They live in the guts of tropical marine fish, an environment rich in sodium, which the team’s analysis suggests the bacteria use, along with polysaccharides from their host’s diet, to meet their outsize energy requirements.