These projects investigated bacterial genomics with the intent of developing new tools to uncover the mechanisms by which they can become more pathogenic. Genetic recombination is the way that simple organisms, like bacteria, integrate new genetic information; scientists believe that this is how they evolve and become more deadly. The first project looked at the transfer of random fragments of DNA between two closely related bacterial strains to see how often specific DNA fragments from one bacteria are integrated into the genome of another. The second project focused on the transcriptome of the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These projects aimed to provide important information about how bacteria change and become more pathogenic, and potentially suggesting ways to limit the spread of antibiotic resistance and other harmful traits.