microbiology n : the branch of biology that studies microorganisms and their effects on humans

English

Noun

1. The branch of biology that deals with microorganisms, especially their effects on man and other living organisms.

Translations

Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are unicellular or cell-cluster microscopic organisms. This includes eukaryotes such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes such as bacteria and certain algae. Viruses, though not strictly classed as living organisms, are also studied. Microbiology is a broad term which includes virology, mycology, parasitology and other branches. A microbiologist is a specialist in microbiology.

Microbiology is actively researched, and the field is advancing continually. We have probably only studied about one percent of all of the microbe species on Earth. Although microbes were first observed over three hundred years ago, the field of microbiology can be said to be in its infancy relative to older biological disciplines such as zoology and botany.

History

Pre-microbiology

The existence of microorganisms was hypothesized for many centuries before their actual discovery in the 17th century. The first theories on microorganisms was made by Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in a book titled On Agriculture in which he warns against locating a homestead in the vicinity of swamps: This passage seems to indicate that the ancients were aware of the possibility that diseases could be spread by yet unseen organisms.

In The Canon of Medicine (1020), Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected. He also hypothesized on the contagious nature of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and used quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of contagious diseases.

When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by "minute bodies" which enter the human body and cause disease.

The field of bacteriology (later a subdiscipline of microbiology) is generally considered to have been founded by Ferdinand Cohn (1828–1898), a botanist whose studies on algae and photosynthetic bacteria led him to describe several bacteria including Bacillus and Beggiatoa. Cohn was also the first to formulate a scheme for the taxonomic classification of bacteria. Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and Robert Koch (1843–1910) were contemporaries of Cohn’s and are often considered to be the founders of medical microbiology. Pasteur is most famous for his series of experiments designed to disprove the then widely held theory of spontaneous generation, thereby solidifying microbiology’s identity as a biological science. Pasteur also designed methods for food preservation (pasteurization) and vaccines against several diseases such as anthrax, fowl cholera and rabies. While his work on the Tobacco Mosaic Virus established the basic principles of virology, it was his development of enrichment culturing that had the most immediate impact on microbiology by allowing for the cultivation of a wide range of microbes with wildly different physiologies. Winogradsky was the first to develop the concept of chemolithotrophy and to thereby reveal the essential role played by microorganisms in geochemical processes. He was responsible for the first isolation and description of both nitrifying and nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

A variety of biopolymers, such as polysaccharides, polyesters, and polyamides, are produced by microorganisms. Microorganisms are used for the biotechnological production of biopolymers with tailored properties suitable for high-value medical application such as tissue engineering and drug delivery. Microorganisms are used for the biosynthesis of xanthan, alginate, cellulose, cyanophycin, poly(gamma-glutamic acid), levan, hyaluronic acid, organic acids, oligosaccharides and polysaccharide, and polyhydroxyalkanoates.

Microorganisms are beneficial for microbial biodegradation or bioremediation of domestic, agricultural and industrial wastes and subsurface pollution in soils, sediments and marine environments. The ability of each microorganism to degrade toxic waste depends on the nature of each contaminant. Since most sites are typically comprised of multiple pollutant types, the most effective approach to microbial biodegradation is to use a mixture of bacterial species and strains, each specific to the biodegradation of one or more types of contaminants.

There are also various claims concerning the contributions to human and animal health by consuming probiotics (bacteria potentially beneficial to the digestive system) and/or prebiotics (substances consumed to promote the growth of probiotic microorganisms).

References

Further reading

• Medicine, health, and bioethics : essential primary sources
• Bio-Communication of Bacteria and its Evolutionary Interrelations to Natural Genome Editing Competences of Viruses.

See also

• Archaea
• Bacteria
• Biochemistry
• Biomilling
• Biosafety
• Biotechnology
• Environmental microbiology
• Eukaryote
• Food microbiology
• Genetics
• Geomicrobiology
• Good Hygiene Practice
• Good Microbiological Practice
• Immunology
• Important publications in microbiology
• Industrial microbiology
• Medical technologist
• Medicine
• Mycology
• Oral microbiology
• Bacteriophage meetings
• Prokaryote
• Virology

External links

General

• Online lectures in microbiology University of South Carolina
• Online Microbiology textbook
• Todar's Bacteriology textbook
• Online Medical Microbiology textbook

Journals

• Critical Reviews in Microbiology (journal home)

• Nature Reviews Microbiology (journal home)

• Springer Protocols in Microbiology

Professional organizations

• Information portal For Microbiology Students
• American Society for Microbiology
• Society for General Microbiology
• Society for Industrial Microbiology

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