In my proposal talk, I will discuss specific questions regarding viral voting mechanism, forming a detailed dynamical picture of the lysis/lysogeny decision making process and the co-existence of E. coli and viruses. I will also discuss the proposed experiments to address those questions. Finally, I will discuss the involvement of the dynamics of the bacterial cytoskeleton and the cell mechanics beyond E. coli. ________________________________________________________________ Lanying Zeng is a post-doc at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and from UIUC in 2007.