The expression on the young man’s face as he stood by the railing surrounding the zebra enclosure at the Bronx Zoo might have been mistaken for awe at the animals’ magnificent hides or spry gaits. However, as the man reached into the enclosure and scooped a clump of soil and zebra dung into his hands, he had something different in mind. The soil harbored bacteriophages, bacteriainfecting viruses that have shaped the life’s work of William “Bill” Jacobs, Jr., a professor of microbiology, immunology, and genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York City, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
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