Introduction to Microbiology

• Ex. of microbes: Bacteria, Archaea, Fungi, Protozoa, Multicellular Animal Parasite, Algae, Viruses
• 3 shapes of bacterial are: coccus, bacillus, and spirillum.
• Microbiology is the study of microbes. Individual microbes can be observed only with the use of various types of microscopes.
• nonliving entities and living organisms are called microbes.
• Micro means very small—anything so small that it must be viewed with a microscope (an optical instrument used to observe very small objects)
• microbiology can be defined as the study of microbes. Microbes are said to be ubiquitous, meaning they are everywhere.
• Cellular Microbes

  A) Bacteria

  B) Archaea

  C) Protozoa

  D) Algae

  E) Fungi

  F) Cellular

  
• Acellular Microbes

  A) Prions

  B) HIV/AIDS

  C) Viroids

  D) Acellular

  
• GERMS : is derived from the Latin word germen, which means to sprout or germinate. First applied to bacteria in the nineteenth century to explain disease-causing cells that grew quickly.
• Microbes that cause disease are known as pathogens. Those that do not cause disease are called nonpathogens.
• Microbes that live on and in the human body are referred to as our indigenous microflora
• Opportunistic pathogens do not cause disease under ordinary conditions, but have the potential to cause disease should the opportunity present itself
• Many microbes are involved in the decomposition of dead organisms and the waste products of living organisms, collectively referred to as decomposers or saprophytes
• Some microbes are capable of decomposing industrial wastes, like oil spills, a process known as bioremediation
• Many microbes are involved in elemental cycles such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorous cycles
• Algae and bacteria serve as food for tiny animals
• Some microbes live in the intestinal tracts of animals, aiding in digestion and producing substances like vitamins K and B1 in the human body
• Many microbes are essential in various food and beverage industries, while others are used to produce enzymes and chemicals
• Some bacteria and fungi produce antibiotics used to treat infectious diseases, with antibiotics being substances effective in killing or inhibiting the growth of other microbes
• Microbes play a crucial role in genetic engineering, where genes from one organism are inserted into a bacterial or yeast cell
• Pathogens cause two major types of diseases: infectious diseases and microbial intoxications
• Disease

  A) infectious disease

  B) microbial intoxication

  
• Candidates for the first microbes on Earth is archaea and cyanobacteria.

  A) Archaea

  
• what it is

  A) Cynobacteria

  
• EARLIEST KNOWN INFECTIOUS DISEASES 1. A “PESTILENCE” OCCURRED IN EGYPT ABOUT 3180 BC; IT IS CAUSED BY THE BACTERIUM, YERSINIA PESTIS.
• 2. 1500 BC - Ebers papyrus 3. 1122 BC - Smallpox occurred in China 4. Epidemics of plague occurred in Rome in 790, 710, and 640 BC and in Greece around 430 BC 5. There are early accounts of rabies, anthrax, dysentery, smallpox, ergotism, botulism, measles, typhoid fever, typhus fever, diphtheria, and syphilis
• SYPHILIS (TREPONEMA PALLIDUM) •First appearance in Europe in 1493 •Was carried to Europe by Native Americans who were brought to Portugal by Christopher Columbus •Neapolitan Disease •French or Spanish Disease •French pox •Spanish, German, Polish and Turkish pocks
• Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) is known as "The Father of Microbiology" and is considered to be the first microbiologist
• He invented the first single-lens microscope and discovered the "invisible world of microorganisms": Anton Van Leeuwenhouk
• Van Leeuwenhoek was the first person to observe organisms that are unseen by the naked eye, which he called "animalcules"
• He observed these animalcules using samples of rainwater, liquid in which peppercorns had been soaked, and teeth scrapings
• First simple microscope- Anton Van Leeuwenhoek

  
• Louis Pasteur (1822–1895): Father of Immunology” . He changed the belief that diseases were caused by black spirits but instead they are caused by microorganisms. He was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization.He performed the swan-neck flask experiment and invented Pasteur pipet.

  
• Robert Koch (1843–1910): He was a celebrated German physician and pioneering microbiologist. •The founder of modern bacteriology, he is known for giving experimental support for the concept of infectious disease. •He introduced the principle of “Pure Culture Technique”. •He also proved that microorganisms caused disease. •He used a sequence of procedures called “Koch’s Postulates” to describe the epidemiology of disease (the disease causation process).

  
• IGNAZ PHILIP SEMMELWEIS (1840s): began using antiseptic procedures to prevent "childbirth infection" or puerperal fever (a serious and often fatal disease associated with infection contracted during delivery)

  
• JOSEPH LISTER (1860): an English surgeon, reasoned that surgical infection(sepsis) might be caused by microorganisms.

  1. Sepsis - The condition resulting from the presence of pathogenic microbes or their products in blood or tissues. Devised methods to prevent microbes from entering the wounds of his patients. His procedures came to be known as antiseptic (against sepsis) surgery, and included handwashing, sterilizing instruments, and dressing wounds with carbolic acid (phenol)

  
• FANNY HESSE: Developed the use of agar as asolidifying agent for microbiological media.

  
• RICHARD J. PETRI: Developed the Petri dish in which microbial cultures could be grown and manipulated.

  
• HANS CHRIS TIAN GRAM: Developed the Gram stain, a stain technique that could be used to separate two major groups of disease causing bacteria. - Koch discovered the bacterium (M. tuberculosis) that causes tuberculosis and the bacterium (Vibrio cholerae) that causes cholera

  
• EDWARD JENNER : In 1796, (a British Physician) reported the use of material scraped from the skin of an individual infected with cowpox to immunize a child against smallpox