This work is the culmination of our attempts to analyze the nucleoid of the extremophilic bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans under acute radiation stress. In a clockwise fashion, we see increasing dosages of ionizing radiation (kGy), which progressively seems to induce condensation of the bacterial genome into a circularized nucleoid. The nucleoid morphology of D. radiodurans is suggested to play a large role in it’s radiotolerance, and has opened discussions regarding the utility of controlling the nucleoid for tunable gene expression. This work has been generously funded by the AFOSR for the previous 3-year period, and has created a new breakthrough frontier for our lab. Contributors: Dr. Lydia Contreras, Antonio Cordova, Brandon Niese, Dr. Vernita Gordon