Microbiology Key Terms From Chapter 1

Front 1

A gelitan-like solidifying agent used in laboratory culture media.

Back 1

Agar

Front 2

Tiny, rapidly swimming animals first observed under a microscope by Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek in the 1670's.

Back 2

Animalcules

Front 3

A process widely employed by various industries that uses microbes to solve biological problems; to produce large quantities of useful items such as antibiodics, vitamins, and food supplements; and to degrade toxic materials (especially in raw sewage).

Back 3

Biotechnology

Front 4

The replacement of a defective gene with a normal one in patients suffering from a wide variety of genetic diseases.

Back 4

Gene Therapy

Front 5

The belief that microbes will grow in humans and are the cause of diseases that spread from person to person and town to town.

Back 5

Germ Theory of Disease

Front 6

A suggested explanation for observations relating to a specific scientific phenomenon.

Back 6

Hypothesis

Front 7

4 requirements by Robert Koch in 1870, must be satisfied to establish that an organism is the cause of a disease. 1)show that organism exists in infected animals but not in animals that are not infected. 2) Obtain a pure culture of the organism. 3) Produce the same symptoms seen in infected animals by inoculating healthy animals with this isolate. 4) isolate the identical microbe from the newly infected animal.

Back 7

Koch Postulates

Front 8

Enzymes discovered by Alexander Fleming in the early twentieth century that destroy bacteria by degrading bacterial cell walls.

Back 8

Lysozymes

Front 9

Tiny, medically relevant organsims including. Prions, viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites.

Back 9

Microbes

Front 10

The study of a variety of organisms that require a microscope to be seen.

Back 10

Microbiology

Front 11

The first true antibiodic used to kill bacteria during the twentieth century.

Back 11

Penicillin

Front 12

A group of microorganisms consisting of a single species of cells with no external contamination.

Back 12

Pure Culture

Front 13

A logic-based process scientists use to make observations about a specific phenomenon, develop a hypothesis to explain these observations, and arrice at provable conclusions.

Back 13

Scientific Method

Front 14

The notion that microbes develop without any cellular parentage.

Back 14

Spontaneous Generation