Microbiology is what science? Medical Microbiology

A person is surrounded by a habitat, certain components of which we are unable to see. And because in addition to humans and animals there is also a microcosm, directly or indirectly affecting the entire environment, it needs to be studied. Science, whose methods and purposes are directed to the study of living microorganisms, the laws of their development and life, and also on the peculiarities of interaction with nature and directly with man, is microbiology.

Formation of microbiology

Within the standard university course called "Microbiology" lectures include materials related to the history of science. And in its development a descriptive period is distinguished, which began with the invention of a microscope and consideration of the first bacteria. Then new organisms gradually opened up to science, and their meaning became more understandable to man. At the same time, 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 (in the photo below), who developed methods for isolating germs from foci, can not remain without attention. Subsequently, other methods for the detection of microorganisms have already been developed. Their properties and role in biocenoses, as well as in human life were studied in more detail.

The contribution of scientists to the development of science

Otto Friedrich Müller became the first scientist who tried to systematize the organisms of the microworld. He singled out 379 separate species of microorganisms. He took them to certain classes. Microbiology, sanitation and epidemiology were not yet introduced into practice, and microbes already had the notion of being separate organisms living in an inaccessible world.

Recognize this world and learn more about it helped research Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. The latter was able to develop the principles of isolation of 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 the infections made the most significant contribution to the overall morbidity, the role of these studies was very important.

After that, many new names appear in the history of science. So microbiology developed. Scientists have made a great contribution to this great cause, glorifying their names. As an example, we can mention such researchers as MV Beyerink, SN Vinogradsky, G. Kh. Gram, II Mechnikov, DI Ivanovskii, LS Tsenkovsky, E. A. Behring , ZA Waxman, A. Calmette, RF 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, the methods of research 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 field of management. 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 to identify infectious agents and to 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, almost broke off from microbiology into a separate science. Today it is combined with oncology and allergology. At the same time, other branches of microbiology are no less important: they make it possible to assess the prospects of genetic engineering use of microbes, to suggest the development of climate and biocenoses of the ocean and land. Also important is the potential prospect of using microorganisms in agriculture to fight parasites or to increase crop yields.

Objectives of microbiology

Each separate 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 counteract contacts with infections and their treatment.

Improvement of microbial diagnostics, elimination of foci of pathogenic microflora in the biosphere, as well as vaccine prevention complement the methods of medical microbiology. At the same time, due to lack of funding and because of the possible risk of disturbance of processes in biocenoses, there is no way to completely get rid of the pathogens of infectious diseases. 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 applied 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 wastes. In agricultural microbiology, the goal is the potential use of the smallest organisms to increase the yield of crops and the possible control of pests and weeds.

Veterinary microbiology, as well as medical, studies pathogens in animals. Methods for identifying ailments, their diagnosis and treatment in friends of our smaller ones are just as relevant as people's. Water microbiology is engaged in studying the composition of microorganisms of the World Ocean in order to systematize knowledge and their potential use in industry or agriculture.

Sanitary microbiology studies food products and identifies microbes in them. Its goal is to improve the methods that allow checking the batch of food products. The second task is to counteract the epidemics of infectious diseases and to optimize the regimes of finding people in various institutions that are dangerous from the point of view of the epidemic of contact infections.

General Microbiology

General microbiology is a science, the methods of which allow studying any microorganisms in different habitats. It is a basic industry that provides information obtained from industrial, agricultural, veterinary and medical microbiology. She studies bacteria and their families, the ability of microorganisms to grow on various nutrient media, the 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 for short periods of time. One of the most undesirable is antibiotic resistance. The emergence of new strains of bacteria 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, protozoa. This is also the doctrine of immunity. In accordance with certain interests, separate branches of science are distinguished: virology, mycology, protozoology, immunology. The new data obtained during the study of strains of bacteria, fungi and viruses will be applied in any other branch of microbiology and have a certain importance.

Bacteriology

The kingdom of bacteria is considered the most numerous among all the others that microbiology studies. The topics on bacterial research because of this are the most narrow. To assign a specific organism to one species, a careful study of its morphology and biochemical processes is required. For example, many bacteria of the intestinal group ferment glucose and based on this criterion belong to a particular group.

From a certain community of organisms in the future will be isolated strain - 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 within the population residing in this environment. In other conditions, this same culture freely mutates and adapts, due to which a new strain is formed. It can be distinguished by a different set of enzymes and virulent factors. Therefore, his ability to cause the disease will be different.

Virology

Among all living organisms, viruses are the most atypical. They are defective, incapable of metabolism, and they chose parasitic tactics for reproduction. It is important that this is also the most amazing pathogens from all that microbiology studies (virology). Immunology also deals with the study of viruses, because many of them are able to suppress immunity and cause cancer.

Viruses are very simple organisms with not yet fully understood mechanisms of functioning. They can not metabolize nutrients, but they remain alive. Without the structures responsible for vital activity, they still exist. Moreover, the virus can be represented as a genetic material with the mechanisms of its introduction into cells where reproduction will take place.

It is obvious that 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 powerful protection of the immune system, easily and simply infects a person and leads to immunodeficiency. Therefore, microbiology and immunology should jointly deal with this problem, looking for ways to solve it. And since viruses have more opportunities due to the astonishing rate of mutation, the mechanisms for combating these pathogens need to be developed as quickly as possible.

Mycology

Mycology is a branch of general microbiology that studies molds. These organisms tend to cause human, animal, and agricultural diseases. Mold fungi spoil food and due to the fact that they are able to form spores, almost invulnerable. However, while they have a small number of virulence factors and reproduce slowly enough, their contribution to the overall incidence is low.

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, the fungi grow on the hulls of spacecraft in near-earth orbits, and also the housing of the damaged reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Given the tremendous resistance to the factors controlling these microorganisms, 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 also studies protozoa. These are single-celled organisms that differ from bacteria by larger sizes and the presence of a cell nucleus. Because of its presence, they are more adapted to stationary environmental conditions than to dynamically changing ones. However, they are capable of causing diseases not less often than others.

According to statistics provided by WHO, about a quarter of all cases of disease are attributed to malaria. While it is impossible to cope with it completely, because there are several types of plasmodia. Hence, the importance of further study of all protists in general and plasmodia in particular is very large.

Immunology

In the Institute of Microbiology of the USSR, a lot of studies of the human immune system were carried out. Developments on them are still difficult to apply for treatment, but they are indispensable for diagnosis now. This is a serological diagnosis of a number of infectious diseases. It is microbiology that clinical medicine is obliged to have in its arsenal such a valuable diagnostic method.

It is important that all departments of epidemiology and microbiology somehow affect the concept of immunity. And both disciplines are widely used vaccines. Their development is also the result of scientific works of immunologists and microbiologists. They are the most effective preventive means, allowing to limit (and in some cases even to exclude) the probability of infection in contact with a pathogenic viral or bacterial pathogen. Now the development of vaccines against HIV and viruses that cause the onset of cancer.

Methodology of microbiology

To study a specific microorganism means to determine the characteristics of its morphology, to evaluate the completeness of the biochemical reactions, on the course of which it is capable, to recognize its RNA, to refer it to a certain kingdom and name the strain. This amount of work is required to be done when a new culture is opened. If the microbe is already known (determined by the characteristics of the fermentation of substrates of nutrient media or on the cell wall), then it is required to refer it to a specific strain. Any of these tasks requires the availability of standardized methods and specific equipment.

Also, medical microbiology has its own 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 in serological markers, to determine a person's sensitivity to certain diseases. These tasks are solved by microbiological, microscopic, biological, serological and allergic methods.

In a textbook titled "Microbiology," Vorobyov A. V. describes that microscopy is a fundamental, but not the main, method for studying the microbe. It can be light, electronic, phase-contrast, darkfield and fluorescent. The author also points out that, as the microbiological methods, the most important is considered cultural, which allows the cultivation of a colony of microbes found in biological fluids and patient environments.

Cultural methods can be virological and bacteriological. Most often, blood, urine, saliva, sputum, cerebrospinal fluid are required for research. Of them, you can identify the organism 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 culture method allows to increase the volume of pathogenic flora.

In the textbook on discipline "Microbiology" Vorobyov AV and co-authors describe biological methods of studying microbes. They are based on the isolation of specific toxins characteristic of either a group of bacterial species, or only one strain. Allergic methods are associated with the property of bacterial toxins to cause allergy (or sensitization) in a macroorganism during infection. An example is the Mantoux test. Serological methods, in turn, represent reactions with specific antibodies and antigens of bacteria. This allows you to quickly and accurately determine the presence of a microbe in the tissue or fluid material taken from the patient.

The great success 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 allowed us to get the first antibiotic. Thanks to him from wound infection, a huge number of soldiers were saved.

Subsequently, the use of antibiotics began to expand, and today it allows for complex operations. Given that many infections can not be cured without the use of antibiotics, their presence simply turns all the medicine and makes it possible to save many lives. This achievement stands on a par with vaccine prevention, which also saved many patients from the virus of poliomyelitis, hepatitis B and smallpox. And now immunological methods of fighting cancer are being developed.