Micro Lectures 1 & 2 Flashcards

The specialized area of biology that deals with organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye

- microorganisms or microbes

- germs, viruses, or agents

- "bugs"

Three cellular types of microorganisms

Two types of microorganisms that are not cells at all (acellular)

Dependent on host cells for their activity and reproduction

Folded proteins that act like infectious particles

- Branch deals with microbes that cause diseases in humans and animals

- Researchers examine factors that make the microbes cause disease and mechanisms for inhibiting them

- Branches monitor and control health and the spread of diseases in communities

- USPHS (US Public Heath Service)

- CDC (Centers of Disease Control and Prevention)

- WHO (World Health Organization)

- Branch studies complex web of protective substances and cells produced in response to infection

- Included diverse areas such as vaccination, blood testing, and allergy

- Investigate the role of the immune system in cancer and autoimmune diseases

- Branch safeguards our food and water, and also included biotechnology, the use of microbial metabolism to arrive at a desired product, ranging from bread making to gene therapy

- Branch is concerned with the relationships between microbes and domesticated plants and animals

- Plant specialists focus on plant diseases, soil fertility, and nutritional interactions

- Animal specialists work with infectious diseases and other associations animals have with microorganisms

Study the effect of microbes on the earths diverse habitats

Bacteria are ________. They are found:

- deep in the earth's crust

- polar ice caps

- oceans

- inside the bodies of plants and animals

Bacteria invented photosynthesis long before the first plants appeared in this process that did not produce oxygen; later evolved into oxygenic photosynthesis

- breakdown of dead matter and wastes

- accomplished by bacteria and fungi

Discovery made through experience, not planned experimentation

Manipulation of microorganisms to make products in an industrial setting

Area of biotechnology that manipulates the genetics of microbes, plants, and animals for the purpose of creating new products and genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

- Techniques that allow the transfer of genetic material from one organism to another and deliberately alter DNA

- Deliberately modifies the genetic structure of an organism to create novel products, microbes, animals, plants, and viruses

- Introduction of microbes into the environment to restore stability or to clean up toxic pollutants

- Decomposition of harmful chemicals by microbes or consortia of microbes

Any agent such as a virus, bacterium, fungus, protozoan, or helminth that causes disease; nearly 2,000 different microbes can cause disease

- Kills between 700,000 - 1.2 million people every year

- Transmitted by mosquitoes

- Prevention of infection is thought he use of bed nets, which although inexpensive, are too expensive for poor families

- About 10x smaller than eukaryotic cells

- Lack organelles

- Single-celled

- Not microorganisms but are included in the study of infectious disease

- They are transmitted similarly to bacterial diseases

- The human body responds to them in the same way as it responds to bacterial diseases

- Harbored and nourished by the host

- Cause damage and disease in the host

First observations of microbes in the 1600s

- Made a crude microscope to examine threads in fabrics

- Made drawings of what he called "animalcules" in rainwater and scraped from his teeth

- Found that microbes in the dust and air have high heat resistance

- Discovered and described bacterial endospores
- Sterile: completely free of all life forms including endospores and virus particles.

- Linked a specific microorganism with a specific disease

- Established a series of proofs that verified the germ theory of disease

Showed that women became infected in the maternity ward after examinations by physicians who had been working in the autopsy rooms

- First to utilize hand washing and misting operating rooms with antiseptic chemicals
- Techniques became the foundation for modern microbial control still in use today

- Invented pasteurization

- Showed that human diseases could arise from infection

- Disproved the theory of spontaneous generation of living organisms from "vital forces" in the air

Attempts to orderly arrangement of organisms into taxa

The process of discovering and recording the traits of organisms so they can be recognized and placed in a
taxonomic scheme