A talk by Olga Golyshina, Bangor University.
This lecture highlighted how microbiology has changed over the last few years.
Microbiology has greatly changed over the last few years, possibly due to the advent of new DNA sequencing technologies and the genomic revolution.
Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek
The ability to study microorganisms started when Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek invented the first microscope in the late sixteen hundreds.
This simple microscope changed dramatically over the years into more complex and sophisticated structures, such as the electron microscope and the cryo-electron microscope.
Ferdinand Cohn
Ferdinand Cohn introduced a systematic classification of bacteria based upon their morphology and divided them into four groups; spherical, short rods, longer rods, and spiral.
The ability to classify microorganisms into specific groups based upon their morphology, in that time, was an advancement.
Louis Pasteur
Pasteur studied the question ‘does spontaneous generation occur’, via famous experiments.
Through his experiments, he rejected, then proved, the thought that organisms could spontaneously arise from non living matter.
As his name may suggest, he is most commonly known today for his invention of pasteurization and the preservation of products, such as milk, wine and beer – a process which involves high temperatures to kill microorganisms.
Along with pasteurization, Pasteur developed a process known as tyndallisation which sterilises food products.
Joseph Lister
Lister was a surgeon and has been named “the father of English antiseptic surgery”.
Lister introduced the method of serial dilution, which is important for the isolation and culture of microorganisms.
Robert Koch
Koch was called “the father of medical microbiology”, as he studied many diseases.
He founded the discovery of numerous diseases, and distinguished the bacteria which caused them.
Koch studied the relationship between Bacillus anthracis and Anthrax disease, and he discovered that tuberculosis was caused by a rod-shaped bacterium.
His techniques are still used today in the classification of disease causing bacteria.
Koch introduced the ‘postulates of Koch’, these are important in both medical microbiology and in environmental microbiology, and they allow for studies to determine the relationship between the microorganism and the disease.
These postulates are still used greatly today.
Sergei Winogradsky
Winogradsky was named “the father of environmental microbiology”, due to his studies on soil microbiology and mircrobial ecology.
He is possibly most famously known for his discovery of chemosynthesis, in which organisms obtain energy from chemical reactions.
He also developed the Winogradsky column, a small microbial ecosystem, in which one can study the microorganisms which form, this is still used today.
Winogradsky studied biogeochemical cycles and how microorganisms contribute to them.
There were many discoveries which have contributed to microbiology and their present studies.
Without many of these discoveries and developments, what we know now about microorganisms would not have been possible.
This talk highlighted the importance of these discoveries, and the contribution these microbiologists made.
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