Quotes About Microbiology

We need to know more about how group A strep interact with humans to cause so many different illnesses.

Joe could see that the CDC wasn't going to solve the problem. But there was a solution: the United States was by far the world's leader in microbiology research. It contained thousands of microbiology labs, run by private companies and universities and nonprofits, like the one he presided over at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. The thing to do, Joe decided, was to transform the Biohub into a COVID-19 testing center as quickly as possible—

To build the most basic yeast cell, for example, you would have to miniaturize about the same number of components as are found in a Boeing 777 jetliner and fit them into a sphere just five microns across; then somehow you would have to persuade that sphere to reproduce.

we now know that most viruses infect only bacterial cells and have no effect on us at all. Of the hundreds of thousands of viruses reasonably supposed to exist, just 586 species are known to infect mammals, and of these only 263 affect humans.

Twenty years after Waksman's death, the American Society for Microbiology made a somewhat belated attempt at amends by inviting Schatz to address the society on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of streptomycin's discovery. In recognition of his achievements, and presumably without giving the matter a lot of thought, it bestowed on him its highest award: the Selman A. Waksman medal. Life sometimes really is very unfair.

Every bit of penicillin made since that day is descended from that single random cantaloupe

One begins to see bacteria, not as individual species, but as a vast array of interacting constituents of an integrated microbial world.

Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.

Disgust is intuitive microbiology

It has been recognized since the dawn of microbiology that the soil is inhabited by a living microscopic population which is responsible for the numerous reactions that take place in the soil and that affect the life and economy of man in many ways.

In the development of antibiotics, the soil microbiological population has contributed more than its share. It is to the soil that the microbiologists came in search of new antibacterial agents.

It was the first time anyone had found a virus of a virus. It was yet another thing that ought not to exist.

A virus does not reproduce by copying its own genes and dividing in two. Instead, it invades a host cell.

influenza viruses manage to wreak their harm with very little genetic information—just thirteen genes.

That's not because HPV was rare—far from it: a 2014 study on 103 healthy people detected the viruses in 71 of them—about 69 percent.

Much of modern molecular biology and microbiology has been based on the effort to decipher the basic code of life, which is made up of four nucleotides: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine.

Based on the number of viruses she found in her samples, Proctor estimated that every liter of seawater contained up to one hundred billion viruses.

Bacteria live in unbelievable mixtures of hundreds or thousands of species. Like on your teeth. There are 600 species of bacteria on your teeth every morning.

In my lab, we are always thinking about how cells, bacterial cells, can talk to each other and then organize themselves into enormous groups that function in unison.

Everything I did in high school was focused on microbiology, looking at things like algae under a microscope for hours on end. When I was 13, I saved up $100 to buy a good used microscope. I was obsessed with microorganisms.

The easiest of these viruses to study are the ones that attack bacteria, and they were dubbed (remember the term, for it will reappear when we discuss the discovery of CRISPR) "phages," which was short for "bacteriophages," meaning bacteria-eaters.

phages," which was short for "bacteriophages," meaning bacteria-eaters.

To comprehend the interactions between Homo sapiens and the vast and diverse microbial world, perspectives must be forged that meld such disparate fields as medicine, environmentalism, public health, basic ecology, primate biology, human behavior, economic development, cultural anthropology, human rights law, entomology, parasitology, virology, bacteriology, evolutionary biology, and epidemiology.