Bio 221 - Microbio

People

Robert Hooke

First to describe cells based upon his microscopic observation of cork

   Antony van Leeuwenhoek

First person to observe and describe microorganisms accurately

Francesco Redi

Discredited spontaneous generation (the idea that living organisms can develop from nonliving or decomposing matter)

Francesco Redi

showed that maggots on decaying meat came from fly eggs

Louis Pasteur

‘Swan-neck flask’ experiments

·      Placed nutrient solution in flasks

·      Created flasks with long, curved necks – allows air in but traps dust and microbes in the bends due to gravity

·      Boiled the solutions

·      Left flasks exposed to air

·      Results: no growth of microorganisms in flasks with long, curved necks – but there was growth of microorganisms in the flasks with the neck broken off (the broth became contaminated) – disproves spontaneous generation

Pasteur and Roux

discovered that incubation of cultures for long intervals between transfers caused pathogens to lose their ability to cause disease = “attenuation”

Pasteur and coworkers

developed vaccines for chicken cholera, anthrax, and rabies

Pasteur

Demonstrated that alcohol fermentations and other fermentations were the result of microbial activity

Pasteur

Developed the process of pasteurization to preserve wine during storage

Robert Koch

Developed isolation of pure cultures

Robert Koch

Established a protocol to determine the cause of infectious disease.

Koch’s Postulates

used to establish the link between particular microorganisms and a particular disease

·       Koch’s Postulates

·       1.) the microorganism must be present in every case of the disease but absent from healthy individuals

·       2.) the suspected microorganism must be isolated and grown in a pure culture

·       3.) the same disease must result when the isolated microorganism is inoculated into a healthy host

·       4.) the same microorganism must be isolated again from the diseased host

Joseph Lister

Developed procedures for the proper care of surgical wounds and the sterilization of surgical equipment

Joseph Lister

Provided indirect evidence that microorganisms were the causal agents of disease

Joseph Lister

Developed a system of surgery designed to prevent microorganisms from entering wounds as well as methods for treating instruments and surgical dressings - ·      His patients had fewer postoperative infections

Joseph Lister and Robert Koch

contributed significantly to the acceptance of the germ theory of disease

Edward Jenner

used vaccination procedure to protect individuals from smallpox

·      NOTE this proceeded the work establishing the role of microorganisms in disease

·      Attenuated culture: old cultures of bacteria that have lose their ability to cause disease

Sergei Winogradsky and Martinus Beijerinck

Pioneered the use of enrichment cultures and selective media

Arber and Smith

restriction endonucleases

Jackson, Symons, Berg

first novel recombinant molecule

Woese + Sanger

DNA sequencing methods