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Matthew Bond (Dartmouth College, USA) published a paper in eLife on how matrix-trapped viruses can prevent invasion of bacterial biofilms by colonizing cells. They showed that T7 phage remains viable when trapped in an E. coli biofilm, and that if cells colonize a biofilm before phages, they can be killed by phage exposure if it occurs soon after. However, if cells are present long enough before phages, they gain protection via envelopment within curli-producing clusters of resident biofilm cells.