chapter 2 Microbio的logy.ppt

Chapter 2 Microbiology;As the scientist-writer Steven Jay Gould emphasized, we live in the Age of Bacteria. They are the first living organisms on our planet, live virtually everywhere life is possible, are more numerous than any other kind of organism, and probably constitute the largest component of the earth’s biomass. The whole ecosystem depends on their activities, and they influence human society in countless ways. Thus modern microbiology is a large discipline with many different specialties; it has a great impact on fields such as medicine, agricultural and food sciences, ecology, genetics, biochemistry, and molecular biology. For example, microbiology has been a major contributor to the rise of molecular biology, the branch of biology dealing with the physical and chemical aspects of living matter and its function. Microbiologists have been deeply involved in studies on the genetic code and the mechanisms of DNA, RNA, and protein synthesis. Microorganisms were used in many of the early studies on the regulation of gene expression and the control of enzyme activity. In the 1970s new discoveries in microbiology led to the development of recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering.;Professional Words and Phrases;One indication of the importance of microbiology in the twentieth century is the Nobel Prize given for work in physiology or medicine. About 1/3 of these have been awarded to scientists working on microbiological problems. Microbiology has both basic and applied aspects. Many microbiologists are interested primarily in the biology of the microorganisms themselves. They may focus on a specific group of microorganisms and be called virologists (viruses), bacteriologists (bacteria), phycologists or algologists (algae), mycologists (fungi), or protozoologists (protozoa). Others are interested in microbial morphology or particular functional processes and work in fields such as microbial cytology, microbial physiology, microbial ecology, microbial ge