UW News

Robert Morris


December 13, 2024

In the Field: UW oceanographers and undergrads pursue tiny viral prize in Puget Sound waters

people on ship with two tanks filled with water in foreground

UW oceanographer Robert Morris and a collaborator at UCLA are going out with students to collect the most abundant bacteria in the oceans to understand how its relationship with marine viruses changes depending on the place or the season. They leave Dec. 16 aboard UW School of Oceanography’s small research vessel, the RV Rachel Carson.


May 28, 2020

The most common organism in the oceans harbors a virus in its DNA

grey oval with orange circles attached

A new study in Nature Microbiology shows that the most common organism in the world’s oceans — and possibly the whole planet — harbors a virus in its DNA. This virus may have helped it survive and outcompete other organisms. The study began as a UW School of Oceanography senior thesis.


July 19, 2016

UW oceanographers grow, sequence genome of ocean microbe important to climate change

Marine microbes were collected from a low-oxygen fjord in Barkley Sound, off the coast of British Columbia.

A University of Washington team has shed new light on a common but poorly understood bacteria known to live in low-oxygen areas in the ocean. By culturing and sequencing the microbe’s entire genome, the oceanographers found that it significantly contributes to the removal of life-supporting nitrogen from the water in new and surprising ways.