Part 2/14:
Yuning Jian, a 33-year-old researcher at the University of Michigan, and her 34-year-old boyfriend Zunyong Liu, a researcher in China, are accused of plotting to bring samples of a potent crop-killing fungus—causing diseases like head blight of wheat and rice—into American laboratories. Liu was reportedly caught last July at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with samples flown from Shanghai, intending to clone and further develop the pathogen onsite. The fungus has the potential to devastate U.S. agriculture if genetically modified to resist treatment or become more virulent, posing risks from crop failure to food supply contamination.