Major Discoveries In Microbiology

Question 1

Robert Hooke

Answer 1

Compound microscope.
Objective and ocular lens.
Looked at blue mold (eukaryotes)

Question 2

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek

Answer 2

50-300x

First person to look at bacteria

Question 3

Edward Jenner

Answer 3

Cowpox postules to vaccinate against smallpox. Humans are non permissive host to cowpox but cowpox can give cross protection against smallpox.
First bio weapon

Question 4

Louis Pasteur

Answer 4

One of the founding fathers of microbiology.
Disproved spontaneous generation theory with broth experiment (swan neck glass)
People argued no air, so had to do second part.
Developed vaccines for anthrax, fowl cholera, and rabies

Question 5

Joseph Lister

Answer 5

Antiseptic techniques in the operating room.
Carbolic acid (phenol) as antiseptic.

Question 6

Robert Koch

Answer 6

Founding father of microbiology.
Did studies with anthrax (Bacillus anthracis)
Developed concept of pure culture - use of gelatin and then agar
Discovered Mycobacterium tuberculosis is cause of TB and Vibrio cholorae is cause of Cholera.

Question 7

Koch’s postulates

Answer 7

Suspected pathogen in all diseased, absent from healthy.
Suspected pathogen must be grown in pure culture.
Cell from a pure culture of the suspected pathogen must cause disease in a healthy animal.
The suspected pathogen must be reisoolated and shown to be the same as the original.

Question 8

Properties of Agar

Answer 8

High melting temperature - allows for bacteria that require high temp to grow (ie. human body temperatures)
Low geling temperature - allows you to add heat sensitive materials (ie. blood, antibiotics, proteins)
Can’t be digested by microorganisms (poor nutrient source)

Question 9

Paul Ehrlich

Answer 9

Concept of Magic Bullet - chemical agents that are selectively toxic to microorganisms but are harmless to host.
Developed Salvarsan to combat Syphilis (Treponema pallidum)
Used animal models and blindly tested drugs

Question 10

Alexander Fleming

Answer 10

First antibiotic, penicillium
Studied Staphylococcus aureus, contamination led to discovery
Penicillium very effective against gram positive bacteria, inhibits transpepitadation

Question 11

Gerhard Domagk

Answer 11

Studied Streptococcus.
Worked at Bayer to develop Prontisil.
Only active in vivo (active ingredient: Sulfanilamide)
Sulfanilamide is a PABA analog inhibitor, stop it from turning into folic acid which is required for DNA, RNA and proteins.
Humans aren’t affected because humans synthesize folic acid from dihydrofolic acid (what PABA turns into)
Microbes synthesize folic acid de novo.

Question 12

Selman Waksman

Answer 12

Isolated streptomycin from Streptomyces.
Went around looking for antibiotics in soil since there are a ton of microorganisms and they have to compete with each other.
Steptomyces - gram negative bacteria that can produce a lot of antibiotics.
Streptomycin - used in the treatment of TB.

Question 13

Griffith

Answer 13

Transformation in streptococcus

Question 14

Avery, McCloud, McCarty

Answer 14

DNA is the transforming agent

Question 15

Watson and Crick

Answer 15

Structure of DNA

Question 16

Carl Woese

Answer 16

Discovered the Archaea