One of the ways that radiation causes illness is by damaging our DNA. University of Wisconsin-Madison biochemist Michael Cox and his team wanted to find out whether they could breed the common bacteria E. coli to be more resistant to radiation damage. So they took a group of E. coli, bombarded it with radiation until 99 percent of the microbes were dead, and then bred a new generation from the survivors. After 20 rounds of this, they wound up with a group of E. coli that could repair radiation damage after being blasted with ionizing radiation that was four orders of magnitude greater than what their ancestors could endure.
Office of Strategic Communication