The History of Microbiology

Question 1

How are organisms helpful to humans?

Answer 1

Agriculture
Food
Industry

Question 2

How are organisms harmful to humans?

Answer 2

Disease

Fouling

Question 3

How did Louis Pasteur Disprove Spontaneous Generation?

Answer 3

He poured the nonsterile liquid into a flask and sterilized it with heat. Dust and microorganisms get stuck in the neck of the flask and remain sterile. If the flask is tipped, dust and microorganisms enter the flask and the liquid putrefies.

Question 4

Pasteurization

Answer 4

Heating liquids for a short period of time to kill pathogens

Question 5

Germ Theory of Disease

Answer 5

States that many diseases are caused by specific bacteria

Koch’s postulates establishes a casual link between the organism and the disease

Question 6

Koch’s Postulates

Answer 6

1. The suspected pathogen must be present in all cases of the disease and absent from healthy animals
2. The suspected pathogen must be grown in pure culture
3. Cells from a pure culture of the suspected pathogen must cause disease in a healthy animal
4. The suspected pathogen must be reisolated and shown to be the same as the original

Question 7

Koch’s Modified Postulates

Answer 7

1. A nucleic acid sequence belonging to a putative pathogen should be present in most cases of an infectious disease.
2. Fewer copies of pathogen-associated nucleic acid sequences should occur in hosts or tissues without disease
3. With the resolution of disease, the copy number of pathogen-associated nucleic acid sequences should decrease or become undetectable
4. When sequence detection predates disease, or sequence copy number correlates with severity of disease or pathology, the sequence-disease association is more likely to be a causal relationship
5. The nature of the microorganism inferred from the available sequence should be consistent with the known biological characteristics of that group of organisms
6. Tissue-sequence correlates should be sought at the cellular level
7. These sequence-based forms of evidence for microbial causation should be reproducible

Question 8

Taxonomic Classification

Answer 8

Domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species