13 June 2021

Chronological events in the History of Microbiology

Chronological events in the History of Microbiology

Chronological events in the History of Microbiology

Microbiology is the study of microbial life in which basically bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites are studied. The bacteria may constitute archaea and eukarya. The fungus group constitutes unicellular yeast and multicellular moulds. There are different classifications of viruses on the basis of genome, host and mode of replication. Likewise, the parasite may constitute the macroparasites and microparasites.

During the mid-1600s, the microscope was accessible, and Robert Hooke, an English scientist, made important studies. He is said to have seen fungus threads among the cell specimens he examined. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch trader, performed extensive investigations of minute creatures, which he dubbed animalcules, in the 1670s and subsequent decades.

The so-called "golden era of microbiology" began in 1857 with the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch and lasted around 60 years. Many major discoveries were made during this time period, as well as procedures that are being utilised today [1].

The timeline of the history in the development can be traced as follows [1, 2]:

1530

Girolamo Fracastoro proposed that diseases are caused by contagious particles.

1665

Robert Hooke published Micrographia wherein microscopic observation was described.

1676

Antonie Van Leewenhoek observed tiny organisms in water (first man to view bacteria) which he called "animalcules".

1768

Microbes, according to Lazarro Spallanzani, migrate through the air and can be eliminated by boiling.

1810

Bacteria couldn't thrive in air-tight cans, according to Nicolas Appert.

1835

Animal and Vegetable parasite cause various illnesses in plants, animals, and human, according to Agostino Bassi.

1861

Louis Pasteur used the words aerobes and anaerobes to describe yeast growth in the presence or absence of oxygen (development of fermentation technology). Pastuer put an end to the doctrine of spontaneous genesis and endorsed germ theory.

1872

Ferdinand Julius Cohn developed a system of classifying bacteria (spherical, short rods, threads, and spirals).

1876

The advent of the anthrax bacillus by Robert Koch ushered in the discipline of medical bacteriology.

1882

Elie Metchnikoff discovered "phagocytosis" and Robert Koch discovered the agent of Tuberculosis.

1884

Hans Christian Joachim Gram developed Gram staining technique.

1886

Adolf Mayer discovered first plant virus called Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV). [3]

1887

Julius Petri invented the agar-coated glass plate for growing bacteria, replaing earlier attempts that used potato slice and gelatin. [5]

1887

Theodare Escherich described a bacterium called 'bacterium coli commune' (now called as Escherichia coli) [3].

1901

Complement fixation was first introduced by Bordet and Gengou to measure antigen-antibody reactions. [4]

1903

Visceral Leishmaniasis or kala azar was first described by two scientists, Leishman and Donovan.[6]

1905

Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffman described the causative agent of syphilis (Treponema pallidum).

1915 and 1917

Bacteriophages were separately discovered by Frederick William Twort in 1915 and Felix d'Hérelle in 1917 [8].

1928

Transformation was discovered in Streptococcus pneumoniae by Frederick Griffith.

1929

Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin (first antibiotic).

1931

Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll invented the first electron microscope [10].

1933

Gerhard Dogmagk discovered "Prontosil" as first sulfonamide drug.

1944

Ostwald Avery, Maclyn McCarty and Colin MacLeod discovered that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was the "transforming priniciple".

1946

Joshua, Lederberg and E.L. Tatum discovered bacterial conjugation in E. coli.

1951

Joshua, Lederberg and Norton Zinder discovered that Transduction.

1953

James D. Watson and Francis Harry Compton Crick proposed the structure of DNA (three dimensional double-helical structure).

1977

Maxam-Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger independently develop DNA sequencing [7,8].

1985

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was developed by Kary Mullis.

References

  1. https://www.melbecmicrobiology.co.uk/2018/09/26/304/
  2. https://www.pacb.com/wp-content/uploads/Infographic-A-Brief-History-of-Microbiology.pdf
  3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7176178/
  4. Cruse, J.M., Lewis, R.E. (1999). The Complement System. In: Atlas of Immunology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-11196-3_11
  5. Bonnet, M., Lagier, J. C., Raoult, D., & Khelaifia, S. (2019). Bacterial culture through selective and non-selective conditions: the evolution of culture media in clinical microbiology. New microbes and new infections, 34, 100622. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nmni.2019.100622
  6. Sherif R. Zaki, Venancio A.F. Alves, Gillian L. Hale, 7 - Non-Hepatotropic Viral, Bacterial, and Parasitic Infections of the Liver,Editor(s): Alastair D. Burt, Linda D. Ferrell, Stefan G. Hübscher, Macsween's Pathology of the Liver (Seventh Edition),Elsevier, 2018,Pages 416-490,ISBN 9780702066979,https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-7020-6697-9.00007-8.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780702066979000078)
  7. Eren, K., Taktakoğlu, N., & Pirim, I. (2022). DNA Sequencing Methods: From Past to Present. The Eurasian journal of medicine, 54(Suppl1), 47–56. https://doi.org/10.5152/eurasianjmed.2022.22280
  8. Heather, J. M., & Chain, B. (2016). The sequence of sequencers: The history of sequencing DNA. Genomics, 107(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2015.11.003
  9. Aswani, V. H., & Shukla, S. K. (2021). An Early History of Phage Therapy in the United States: Is it Time to Reconsider?. Clinical medicine & research, 19(2), 82–89. https://doi.org/10.3121/cmr.2021.1605
  10. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/first-electron-microscope-constructed

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