UNIT I- HISTORICAL ROOTS Flashcards
(43 cards)
BRIEF HISTORY
1530-Girolamo Fracastoro-
proposed that epidemic diseases are caused by transferrable tiny particles “spores”
1665-Robert Hooke
published Micrographia, a book describing observations made with microscopes and telescopes
1676 Antonie van Leewenhoek
saw tiny organisms in water– the first bacteria observed by man
1768 Lazzaro Spallanzi
proposed that microbes move through the air and that they could be killed through boiling
1810 Nicholas Appert
discovered that bacteria could not grow in foods in air-tight cans.
1835 Agostino Bassi
made the important generalization that many diseases of plants, animals, and man are caused by animal or vegetable parasite.
1861 Louis Pasteur
introduced the terms aerobic and anaerobic in describing the growth of yeast at the expense of sugar in the presence or absence of oxygen.
1876 Robert Koch
discovery of anthrax bacillus in 1876 launched the field of medical bacteriology.
1884 Hans Christian J. Gram
develops a dye system for identifying bacteria (the Gram stain)
LAYING FOUNDATION
1886 Theodore Escherich
describes a bacterium which he called”bacterium coli commune” and which was later to be called Escherichia coli. A strain he isolated in 1886 is added to the collection upon its founding (NCTC 86)
1887 Julius Petri
invents the agar-coated glass dish for culturing bacteria; earlier attempts at culturing involved potato slices and gelatin.
1890 Robert Koch
provides proof of germ theory by injecting pure cultures of the Anthrax bacilli into mice.
1900 Almwroth Wright
isolates NCTC 160 Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotype Typhi from the spleen of a typhoid patient during the Boer War. His wartime experiences later lead him to persuade the armed forces to produce 10 million vaccine doses for WWI troops in Northern France
1915 Private Ernst Cable,
Isolation of the very first bacterial strain registered in the collection. NCTC 1 is a strain of Shigella flexneri recovered from Private Ernst Cable, a WWI soldier who died from dysentery. It is resistant to penicillin and erythromycin even though it was isolated before the discovery of antibiotics
1920 frederick William Andrewes
NCTC is established to “provide a trustworthy source of authentic bacteria for use in scientific studies”. frederick William Andrewes deposits the first cultures
ADVENT OF ANTIBIOTICS
1920 Selman Waksman and Albert Schatz
lead a systematic effort to screen soil bacteria for antimicrobial compounds. NCTC later acquires the Streptomyces griseus strain (NCTC 4523) from which they isolated streptomycin
1928 Alexander Fleming
accidentally discovers penicillin. He returns from vacation and notices that a culture plate left lying out had become overgrown with staphylococci colonies, except where mold was growing. He explores further after his former assistant Merlin Price reminds him, “that’s how you discovered lysozyme”. Over the next 20 years, Fleming deposits 16 samples with NCTC, including a sample of Haemophilus influenza isolated from his own nose in November 1935
1930s NCTC
NCTC introduces freeze-drying of samples to ensure longetivity and streaming storage and shipment
1930s Fritz Kauffman and Phillip White
co- develop a scheme for classifying salmonellae by serotype
1942 Florey and Chain
contribute three Bacillus strains (NCTC 6431, 6432, and 6474) thought to produce ‘ antibacterial substances active against the Staphylococcus’ demonstarting the reserachers were even then seeking antibiotics beyond penicillin.
1947 Edward Tatum and Joshua Lederberg
produce the first gene map of E. coli K12 (NCTC 10538). Despite being one of the most intensively studied organisms in the 20th century, no one definitively knows why it is called “K12”.
MARSHALLING SCIENCE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH
1947 NCTC
NCTC focus shifts from a general microbial collection to bacteria of medical or veterinary interest.
1949 NCTC
begins a 10-year effort to characterize every organism in the collection.
1953 Betty Constance Hobbs
Pioneering food safety microbiologist Betty Constance Hobbs publishes a study establishing Clostridium perfringes as the cause of many outbreaks of food poisoning. She eventually deposits more than 20 NCTC strains of bacteria associated with food-borne illness.