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The Forgotten Woman Who Made Microbiology Possible

Lab work can be a lot like cooking. You have to follow directions to measure, mix, and heat different chemicals to the right temperature to get the desired result. For some experiments, the desired result is actually something that can be eaten by a range of different organisms. In microbiology labs, feeding bacteria is a major preoccupation, and preparing the proper growth medium in a lab’s “kitchen” is often the first step of any experiment. Petri dishes are filled with a sort of savory Jell-O, a nutrient-filled semi-solid matrix that creates a cozy home for bacteria to grow. Without the solid-yet-moist surface of the gel where the bacteria can cling to and reproduce, there’s little hope of…

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 A New Approach to Spotting Tumors: Look for Their Microbes

New research is revealing that cancer is rife with bacteria and fungi — a rich ecosystem that scientists call the tumor microbiome.

 Microbiology and medicine

Read this paragraph, then close your eyes and think through the following: inside your intestines, in your mouth and on your skin, there reside more than 100 000 000 000 000 microbial cells – 100-fold more than the number of cells that make up the human body. We are not conscious of these companions any more than we are conscious of passing them round every time we shake hands, speak or touch a surface. Inoculation with just one microbe of the wrong type in the wrong way may kill you, yet we tolerate and indeed thrive on constant appropriate exposure to this unseen world. Because microbes are generally hidden from our senses, an appreciation of microbiology and infection demands imagination. Our forebears who established the discipline lavished imagination on the problems they studied. Sadly it is that lack of imagination that now underpins serious problems such as hospital-acquired infection and antibiotic resistance.

Articles of Interest

Louis Pasteur’s Relentless Hunt for Germs Floating in the Air

In 19th-century France, the young chemist challenged the theory of spontaneous generation and discovered an invisible world of airborne microbes.

Microbiology: Its Importance in the Healthcare Industry

Undoubtedly, microbiology is considered one of the most significant sciences in biology that can be studied in a sterile processing technician review. Microbiology for health professionals applies to pathology, which involves learning about the structure and functions of the body's organs and tissues. Additionally, conducting this method can be helpful for research into the different causes of certain diseases, treatments, and uses of bacteria for industrial purposes.

Microbiology: The Elusive PPLO

The elusive little bugs are smaller than typical bacteria but are generally bigger than true viruses. Even with an electron microscope they are so difficult to corner and classify that their very name is vague—PPLO (for pleuropneumonia-like organisms). But these days that name keeps popping up in lab reports from all over the world.* The baffling microbes have already been indicted for complicity in causing diseases ranging from puerperal (childbed) fever to the “viral pneumonia” that afflicts so many recruits in boot camps. Now they are even being suspected as a possible cause of cancer.

Microbiology’s Crucial Role in Healthcare and Beyond

Microbiology, the study of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites, plays a pivotal role in numerous aspects of human life. From healthcare to agriculture, food production to environmental conservation, the insights gleaned from microbiology have revolutionized our understanding of the microbial world and its impact on society. In this article, we will explore the multifaceted significance of microbiology and its far-reaching implications for healthcare and beyond.

Modern Life Is Messing With Our Microbiomes, but Science Is Fighting Back

It has gotten harder for people to get the needed exposure to good microbes—and the pandemic hasn’t helped. Here, eight ways scientists are working to restore this essential biological system.

The Future of Computer Security Might Be in Microbiology

So, over the course of evolution, yeast has redesigned itself in relation to its environment. We can’t say the same for computers, no matter that they now almost always exist in environments containing harmful network noise. The researchers suggest that we may be able to come up with our own adaptations for computers taking into account environmental models; these models happen to be quite specific, actually, and readily extrapolated. Taking into account the notion of environmental stress in combination with established models of molecular evolution, the researchers came up with an algorithm that suggests a wide range of different computing and network architectures that had never been considered before.

Resources

American Society for Microbiology

Established in 1899, ASM is the home for microbial scientists from around the globe to connect, learn, discover and prepare for the future.