i.e.d. l. ronald heads up the building, and has assembled a team of virus hunters. their mission - to keep a step ahealth of dangerous pathogens. it's not hard to predict the next breakout, but there's a animals. >> they are spillover. not common in humans, but when we come into contact with infected animals, we don't have immunity to them. >> when viruses jump species, it's called zoouno sis, and transmission is more common. researchers believe that patient zero, for the outbreak of ebola, was a 2-year-old in guinea, and came in contact with bats, while playing in a hollow tree. the director of tissue imaging, and a microbiologist who species. >> we want to develop tools to understand the evolution of these pathogens, what signals might there be that says the virus is acquiring the ability to infect different species. >> reporter: in order to study how the pathogens evolve he uses recombatant technology. genes from jelly fish are fused with the viruses. >> that gene makes a protein which whenever we shine a light on it, a blue light, it blows bright green. that all