Major contributions to the science of microbiology (as a discipline in its modern sense) have spanned the time from the mid-17th century month by month to the present day. The following is a list of notable microbiologists who have made significant contributions to the study of microorganisms. Many of those listed have received a Nobel prize for their contributions to the field of microbiology. The others are typically considered historical figures whose work in microbiology had a notable impact in the field. Those microbiologists who currently work in the field have been excluded unless they have received recognition beyond that of being on the faculty in a college or university.
Birth - Death | Microbiologist | Nationality | Contribution summary | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1632–1723 | Antonie van Leeuwenhoek | Dutch | Considered to be the first acknowledged microscopist. Van Leeuwenhoek was the first to observe microscopic organisms, using simple single-lensed microscopes of his own design. [1] | |
1729–1799 | Lazzaro Spallanzani | Italian | Proved that bacteria did not arise due to spontaneous generation by developing a sealed, sterile broth medium. [2] [3] | |
1749–1823 | Edward Jenner | English | Developed vaccination techniques against smallpox. [2] | |
1818–1865 | Ignaz Semmelweis | Hungarian | Demonstrated that doctors washing their hands with chlorine solution significantly reduced mortality of women giving birth in hospital setting. [4] | |
1853–1938 | Hans Christian Gram | Danish | Developed the Gram stain used to identify and classify bacteria. [2] | |
1845–1922 | Charles Lavaran | French | 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the causative agents of malaria and trypanosomiasis. [2] | |
1827–1912 | Joseph Lister | English | Introduced sterilisation techniques to surgery. [2] [5] | |
1822–1895 | Louis Pasteur | French | Seminal discoveries in vaccination, food safety, and microbial fermentation. A key proponent of the germ theory of disease. [2] | |
1850–1934 | Fanny Hesse | German | Developed agar for use in culturing bacteria. [2] [6] | |
1851–1931 | Martinus Beijerinck | Netherlands | Discovered the first virus as well as bacterial nitrogen fixation and sulfate reduction. | |
1885–1948 | Marjory Stephenson | British | Pioneer of bacterial metabolism. | |
1871–1957 | Kiyoshi Shiga | Japanese | Discovered a bacterium causing an outbreak of dysentery. [2] [7] | |
1856-1953 | Sergei Winogradsky | Ukrainian | Discovered the first known forms of chemoautotrophy, in particular lithotrophy and chemosynthesis. Invented the Winogradsky column technique for the study of sediment microbes. Pioneered the study of biogeochemical cycles, particularly the nitrogen cycle and the contribution of nitrifying bacteria. | |
1854–1917 | Emil Adolf von Behring | German | 1901 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering diphtheria antitoxin. [8] | |
1857–1932 | Sir Ronald Ross | British | 1902 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes [9] | |
1843–1910 | Robert Koch | German | 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on tuberculosis; identified causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax. [10] | |
1845–1922 | Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran | French | 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for recognizing parasitic protozoa as the causes of malaria and African sleeping sickness. [11] | |
1857–1940 | Julius Wagner-Jauregg | Austrian | 1927 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the neurosyphilis could be treated by inducing fever with malaria parasites. [12] | |
1866–1936 | Charles Jules Henri Nicolle | French | 1928 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for determining that typhus is transmitted by body lice. [13] | |
1895–1964 | Gerhard Domagk | German | 1939 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovering the first commercially available antibiotic: prontosil. [14] | |
1881–1955 | Sir Alexander Fleming | Scottish | 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering penicillin. [15] | |
1906–1979 | Sir Ernst Boris Chain | British | ||
1898–1968 | Howard Walter Florey | Australian | ||
1899–1972 | Max Theiler | South African | 1951 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing a vaccine against yellow fever. [16] | |
1888–1973 | Selman Abraham Waksman | American | 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for identifying streptomycin and other antibiotics. [17] | |
The Nobel Prize in Physics is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.
Bacteriology is the branch and specialty of biology that studies the morphology, ecology, genetics and biochemistry of bacteria as well as many other aspects related to them. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classification, and characterization of bacterial species. Because of the similarity of thinking and working with microorganisms other than bacteria, such as protozoa, fungi, and viruses, there has been a tendency for the field of bacteriology to extend as microbiology. The terms were formerly often used interchangeably. However, bacteriology can be classified as a distinct science.
Salvador Edward Luria was an Italian microbiologist, later a naturalized U.S. citizen. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969, with Max Delbrück and Alfred Hershey, for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses. Salvador Luria also showed that bacterial resistance to viruses (phages) is genetically inherited.
Howard Robert Horvitz ForMemRS NAS AAA&S APS NAM is an American biologist whose research on the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Sydney Brenner and John E. Sulston, whose "seminal discoveries concerning the genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death" were "important for medical research and have shed new light on the pathogenesis of many diseases".
Selman Abraham Waksman was a Jewish American inventor, Nobel Prize laureate, biochemist and microbiologist whose research into the decomposition of organisms that live in soil enabled the discovery of streptomycin and several other antibiotics. A professor of biochemistry and microbiology at Rutgers University for four decades, he discovered several antibiotics, and he introduced procedures that have led to the development of many others. The proceeds earned from the licensing of his patents funded a foundation for microbiological research, which established the Waksman Institute of Microbiology located at the Rutgers University Busch Campus in Piscataway, New Jersey (USA). In 1952, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "ingenious, systematic, and successful studies of the soil microbes that led to the discovery of streptomycin." Waksman and his foundation later were sued by Albert Schatz, one of his Ph.D. students and the discoverer of streptomycin, for minimizing Schatz's role in the discovery.
Daniel Nathans was an American microbiologist. He shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application in restriction mapping.
Werner Arber is a Swiss microbiologist and geneticist. Along with American researchers Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans, Werner Arber shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction endonucleases. Their work would lead to the development of recombinant DNA technology.
Linda Brown Buck is an American biologist best known for her work on the olfactory system. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Richard Axel, for their work on olfactory receptors. She is currently on the faculty of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Edmond Henri Fischer was a Swiss-American biochemist. He and his collaborator Edwin G. Krebs were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 for describing how reversible phosphorylation works as a switch to activate proteins and regulate various cellular processes. From 2007 until 2014, he was the Honorary President of the World Cultural Council. At the time of his death at age 101 in 2021, he was the oldest living Nobel Prize laureate.
Mario Ramberg Capecchi is an Italian-born molecular geneticist and a co-awardee of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a method to create mice in which a specific gene is turned off, known as knockout mice. He shared the prize with Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Children's Center, established in 1889.
André Michel Lwoff was a French microbiologist and Nobel laureate of Russian-Polish origin.
Jack William Szostak is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent, Nobel Prize laureate, University Professor at the University of Chicago, former Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Szostak has made significant contributions to the field of genetics. His achievement helped scientists to map the location of genes in mammals and to develop techniques for manipulating genes. His research findings in this area are also instrumental to the Human Genome Project. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation, and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on proposal of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry which consists of five members elected by the Academy. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
John O'Keefe, is an American-British neuroscientist, psychologist and a professor at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour and the Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at University College London. He discovered place cells in the hippocampus, and that they show a specific kind of temporal coding in the form of theta phase precession. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2014, together with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser; he has received several other awards. He has worked at University College London for his entire career, but also held a part-time chair at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at the behest of his Norwegian collaborators, the Mosers.
This is a timeline of women in science in the United States.