A human environment is surrounded by a certain component of which we are unable to see. And since in addition to humans and animals there is also a microworld that directly or indirectly affects the entire environment, it needs to be studied. A science whose methods and goals are aimed at studying living microorganisms, the laws of their development and life, and also about the features of interaction with nature and directly with humans, is microbiology.
The formation of microbiology
As part of a standard university course called Microbiology, lectures include materials related to the history of science. Moreover, in its development, a descriptive period stands out, which began with the invention of the microscope and the examination of the first bacteria. Then new organisms gradually opened up to science, and their meaning became more understandable to man. Moreover, pathogens causing human diseases were further discovered.
The period from 1880 to 1890, which is considered the "golden age" of microbiology, is marked by the largest number of discoveries at that time. And the merit of Robert Koch (pictured below), who developed methods for isolating microbes from foci, cannot be ignored. Subsequently, other methods for detecting microorganisms have already been developed. Their properties and role in biocenoses, as well as in human life, have been studied in more detail.
Contribution of scientists to the development of science
The first scientist who tried to systematize the organisms of the microworld was Otto Friedrich Muller. He identified 379 individual species of microorganisms. He attributed them to certain classes. Microbiology, sanitation and epidemiology were not yet put into practice, and microbes already had an idea as separate organisms living in a world inaccessible to the human eye.
The studies of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch helped to recognize this world and learn more about it. The latter was able to develop principles for isolating microorganisms from the studied material taken from sick people, and Pasteur (together with Koch) concluded that microbes are the causative agents of infectious pathologies. By the way, at the time when infections made the most significant contribution to the overall incidence, the role of these studies was very important.
After this, many new names appear in the history of science. And so microbiology developed. Scientists made a great contribution to this great cause, glorifying their names. As an example, we can cite such researchers as M.V. Beyerink, S.N. Vinogradsky, G. Kh. Gram, I.I. Mechnikov, D.I. Ivanovsky, L.S. Tsenkovsky, E.A. Bering , Z. A. Waxman, A. Calmette, R.F. Peyton and others. Of course, this is not a complete list of the lights of science, and even more so, we could not describe all their merits within the framework of the article. The course, entitled "Microbiology" (lectures and practical exercises), examines in detail many of the research results of these scientists.
Developed areas of microbiology
At the present stage of development of any science, research methods are being improved, which means that there are opportunities for a more complete study of certain microorganisms and their features. As a result, discoveries are made that allow you to indirectly or directly apply knowledge about microbes in any industry. For this reason, microbiology is not just a theoretical field of knowledge. This is a science that has some branches:
- general microbiology;
- medical (mycology, bacteriology, virology, protozoology);
- veterinary;
- industrial;
- agricultural;
- branch of sanitary microbiology;
- water microbiology.
Medical microbiology is a full-fledged science, including mycology, bacteriology, protozoology, virology, sanitation and immunology. Methods have been developed that make it possible to recognize the causative agents of infectious diseases and use effective drugs for their treatment, to prevent diseases that previously led to pandemics with huge mortality rates.
Immunology, due to the complexity of the biochemical processes of immunity, has almost branched off from microbiology into a separate science. Today it is combined with oncology and allergology. At the same time, the remaining branches of microbiology are no less important: they make it possible to assess the prospects for the genetic engineering use of microbes, to suggest the development of climate and biocenoses of the ocean and land. Also important is the potential use of microorganisms in agriculture to control parasites or to increase crop yields.
Microbiology goals
Each individual branch of microbiology has its own goals and methods that allow them to be achieved. In particular, medical microbiology aims to study the maximum possible number of pathogenic and conditionally pathogenic microorganisms, their interaction with the human body, as well as possible ways to counter contacts with infections and their treatment.
The improvement of microbial diagnosis, the elimination of foci of pathogenic microflora in the biosphere, as well as vaccine prophylaxis supplement the methods of medical microbiology. At the same time, due to a lack of funding and because of the possible risk of disruption of processes in biocenoses, there is still no way to completely get rid of infectious pathogens. However, already at the present stage, sanitation and hygiene, microbiology and immunology can significantly reduce the number of such pathologies and their complications.
Industrial microbiology aims to study the properties of microbes that can be used at various stages of production. In particular, the most promising areas of such scientific developments are the use of bacteria for the decomposition of industrial waste. In agricultural microbiology, the goal is the potential use of the smallest organisms to increase crop yields and possibly control pests and weeds.
Veterinary microbiology, like medical, studies animal pathogens. The methods for detecting ailments, their diagnosis and treatment are as relevant for friends of our lesser as for people. Aquatic microbiology is studying the composition of microorganisms of the oceans with the aim of systematizing knowledge and their potential application in industry or agriculture.
Sanitary microbiology studies food products and identifies microbes in them. Its goal remains the improvement of methods that allow checking batches of food products. The second task is to counteract the epidemics of infectious diseases and optimize the routines of finding people in various institutions that are dangerous in terms of the epidemic of contact infections.
General microbiology
General microbiology is a science whose methods allow the study of any microorganisms in various habitats. This is the basic industry that provides the information received from industrial, agricultural, veterinary and medical microbiology. She studies bacteria and their families, the ability of microorganisms to grow on various nutrient media, patterns of settlement of certain climatic zones.
Gene drift is also one of the main interests of bacteriologists, since this mechanism allows bacteria to acquire new abilities within short periods of time. One of the most undesirable is antibiotic resistance. The emergence of new bacterial strains resistant to a specific antimicrobial preparation significantly complicates the tasks of medical microbiology.
But that is not all. General microbiology is the science of viruses, fungi, and protozoa. It is also a doctrine of immunity. In accordance with certain interests, separate branches of science were also identified: virology, mycology, protozoology, immunology. New data obtained during the study of strains of bacteria, fungi and viruses will be applied in any other branch of microbiology and are of certain importance.
Bacteriology
The kingdom of bacteria is considered the most numerous among all the others that are studied by microbiology. Bacterial research topics are therefore the narrowest. To assign a certain organism to one species, a thorough study of its morphology and biochemical processes is required. For example, many bacteria in the intestinal group ferment glucose and, based on this criterion, belong to a specific group.
From a certain community of organisms, a strain will be isolated in the future - a pure bacterial culture. All its individuals will be characterized by the same genetic material, the same as that of other representatives of the same species. And most importantly, all these bacteria will behave identically in the population living in this environment. In other conditions, the same culture freely mutates and adapts, due to which a new strain is formed. It may differ in another set of enzymes and virulent factors. Therefore, his ability to cause disease will be different.
Virology
Of all living organisms, viruses are the most atypical. They are defective, not capable of metabolism, and for reproduction they chose the tactics of parasitism. It is important that these are also the most amazing pathogens of all that are studied by microbiology (virology). Immunology is also engaged in the study of viruses, because many of them are able to inhibit the immune system and cause cancer.
Viruses are very simple organisms with not yet fully understood functioning mechanisms. They cannot metabolize nutrients, but remain alive. Having no structures responsible for vital functions, they still exist. Moreover, the virus can be represented as genetic material with the mechanisms of its introduction into cells, where reproduction will take place.
Obviously, this mechanism of introduction and reproduction is “designed” in such a way as to bypass all conceivable protective barriers of the cell. An example is the HIV virus, which, despite the powerful protection of the immune system, easily and simply infects a person and leads to immunodeficiency. Therefore, microbiology and immunology must jointly deal with this problem, looking for ways to solve it. And since viruses have more opportunities due to the amazing mutation rate, mechanisms to combat these pathogens need to be developed as quickly as possible.
Mycology
Mycology is a branch of general microbiology that studies mold fungi. These organisms tend to cause diseases in humans, animals, and also harm crops. Mold fungi spoil food and due to the fact that they are able to form spores, they are practically invulnerable. However, while they have a small number of virulence factors and reproduce rather slowly, their contribution to the overall incidence is small.
Fungi remain the most adapted organisms for life in the most extreme conditions on land. They rarely live under water, but they feel great in conditions of medium and high humidity. And, what is noteworthy, fungi grow on the hulls of spacecraft in near-earth orbits, and also populated the hull of the damaged reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Given the enormous resistance to the factors of the fight against these microorganisms, the microbiology of food and sanitation should develop more actively. This should be promoted by the development of mycology and other branches of general microbiology.
Protozoology
Microbiology studies and protozoa. These are unicellular organisms that differ from bacteria in larger sizes and the presence of a cell nucleus. Due to its presence, they are more adapted to stationary environmental conditions than to dynamically changing ones. However, they can cause disease at least the rest.
According to statistics provided by WHO, about a quarter of all cases of disease are malaria. While it is impossible to cope with it completely, because there are several types of plasmodium. Hence, the importance of further study of all protists in general and plasmodium in particular is very great.
Immunology
The Scientific Research Institute of Microbiology of the USSR conducted many studies of the human immune system. It is still difficult to use them for treatment, but for diagnosis they are now indispensable. It is a serological diagnosis of a number of infectious diseases. It is microbiology that clinical medicine owes to the presence in its arsenal of such a valuable diagnostic method.
It is important that all departments of epidemiology and microbiology in one way or another affect the concept of immunity. And both disciplines widely use vaccines. Their development is also the result of the scientific work of immunologists and microbiologists. They represent the most effective prophylactic agents that allow you to limit (and in some cases even exclude) the likelihood of infection by contact with a pathogenic viral or bacterial pathogen. Vaccines against HIV and viruses that cause the appearance of oncological tumors are being developed.
Microbiology methodology
To study a specific microorganism means to determine the features of its morphology, to evaluate the completeness of biochemical reactions that it is capable of proceeding, to recognize its RNA, to relate to a certain kingdom, and to name the strain. This amount of work needs to be done when opening a new culture. If the microbe is already known (determined by the characteristics of the fermentation of the substrates of the nutrient media or by the cell wall), then you need to assign it to a specific strain. Any of these tasks requires standardized methods and specific equipment.
Medical microbiology also has its tasks: to find the causative agent of the disease in biological fluids and in tissues that are targets for virulent infections, to identify the presence of a pathogen by serological markers, to determine the sensitivity of a person to certain diseases. These tasks are solved by microbiological, microscopic, biological, serological and allergic methods.
In a textbook entitled "Microbiology" A. Vorobyov describes that microscopy is a fundamental, but not the main, method of studying a microbe. It is light, electronic, phase-contrast, dark-field and fluorescent. The author also points out that as microbiological methods, the most important is cultural, which allows you to grow a colony of microbes found in biological fluids and patient’s media.
Cultural methods can be virological and bacteriological. Most often, research requires blood, urine, saliva, sputum, cerebrospinal fluid. Of these, you can isolate the body and sow it on a nutrient medium. This is necessary for diagnosis, because the concentration of microbes in biological material is very small, and the cultural method allows you to increase the volume of pathogenic flora.
In the textbook on the discipline "Microbiology" Vorobyov A.V. et al describes biological methods for studying microbes. They are based on the release of specific toxins that are characteristic of either a group of bacterial species, or only one strain. Allergic methods are associated with the property of bacterial toxins to cause allergies (or sensitization) in a macroorganism upon infection. An example is the Mantoux test. Serological methods, in turn, are reactions with specific antibodies and bacterial antigens. This allows you to quickly and accurately determine the presence of a microbe in a tissue or liquid material taken from a patient.
The tremendous successes of medical microbiology
Microbiology is an important science for practical medicine, which during its short existence has saved a huge number of lives. The most revealing example is the discovery of microbes responsible for infectious diseases. This made it possible to obtain the first antibiotic. Thanks to him, a huge number of soldiers were saved from a wound infection.
Subsequently, the use of antibiotics began to expand, and today this allows complex operations. Given that many infections cannot be cured without the use of antibiotics, their presence simply flips the whole medicine and makes it possible to save many lives. This achievement is on par with vaccination, which also helped save many patients from polio, hepatitis B and smallpox. And now immunological methods for the fight against cancer are being developed.