Importance Of Microbiology

Microbiology is a subject dealing with microbes and related concepts. Microbiology has come a long way since discovery of microbes and is presently of great help to mankind. It is used in health care, food production, diagnosis, production of alcohol, maintenance of sterility and cleanliness etc. Though the subject was initially limited to study of microbes and their characteristics or properties, latter it was explored to see all possible applications and benefits to man. Microbiology was a boon to eradicate mass destructive epidemics like rabies, small pox and many other infectious diseases.

The present society is so dependent on it that without it there can no proper health and health care. IMPORTANCE OF MICROBIOLOGY
This can be seen by its applications in pharmaceutical, medical, nursing, food, industrial, environment, soil and agriculture. Such diverse application and uses indicates the importance of studying microbiology.

IMPORTANCE OF MICROBIOLOGY IN NURSING:
Use of microbiology in nursing is concerned with diagnosis. It also helps see how the patients health progresses during the treatment. Nurses use hot water or anti-septic as a measure to sterilize the surgical knives, needles,scissors or any other metals to free from microbes. Microbiology also gives knowledge to nurses on how to handle a patient and his samples infected with communicable diseases. If a patient is admitted in hospital is prescribed some antibiotic and if it seems to be not effective, then patient sputum, fecal, urine or blood samples are examined for the type of microbe and based on the identification of microbes suitable antibiotic is given. Further nurse can also identify blood groups of the people by simple immune reactions. It also helps detect disease like Tuberculosis by simple skin test namely the Mantoux test.

Court: Photokanok
IMPORTANCE OF MICROBIOLOGY IN PHARMACY.
Pharmacy and pharmaceutical companies uses microbiology extensively. It is used for production of medicines like antibiotics, enzymes, vaccines, insulin, vitamins, steroids etc. Some f the substance are exclusively obtained from microbial cultures. Most anti-biotics are obtained only from microbes. Vitamin-B12 (cyanocobalamin) is obtained from culture of microbes. Similarly human insulin for diabetics is purely obtained from microbial culture by rDNA technology. Initially diabetics were given injection of insulin obtained from animals. But due to heavy demand and also compatibility problems (as it was animal derived) there was need for some other source of human insulin. Then rDNA technique involving E.coli bacteria was adopted to produce large amounts of human insulin which is even safe. See article on rDNA technology for more info.

For sterilization of manufactured drugs. Microbes are destroyed by sterilization. in search of new drugs.
IMPORTANCE OF MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY:
In medicine microbiology is taught to let pupil understand types of microbial diseases; i.e. how diseases are caused by microbes. Their types like bacterial, viral, fungal etc. Diagnosis and treatment; Even diagnosis of the disease causing microbe is taught so as to give right drug and combat infection effectively. The identification of specific microbe is done by help of microbiological assays. IMPORTANCE OF MICROBIOLOGY IN AGRICULTURE:

Natural Pesticides: Few microbes like bacteria and virus are exploited against pest attacking farm crops. Hence they are called natural pesticides. They are so specific to the pests or insects and don’t cause any harm to the plant or animals and humans. Natural manures: Few microbes like algae and bacteria are grown up to enhance soil fertility by fixing nitrogen and also water retaining capacity of soil. Thus they also maintain soil microbiology suitable for plant growth. Crop rotation is a technique adopted by farmers to enhance soil fertility by use of microbes in roots of leguminous plants.. Decompose the waste: Microbes decompose the synthetic pesticide residues and other toxic material in agriculture soil and there by protect farms from toxin accumulation. Importance of environmental microbiology:

Microbes in environment play an important role in scavenging. This means they clear any dead and decaying matter on the surface, in air and water. without microbes this earth would have been full of corpses i.e. dead bodies. Microbes decay any organic substance directly and inorganic substances indirectly. Role of microorganisms in waste water treatment: Waste water is treated by microbes to free from all garbage. This is termed as biological oxygen demand. i.e. amount of oxygen required by microbes to decay on quintal (100kg) of waste. IMPORTANCE OF SOIL MICROBIOLOGY:

Soil microbiology is very important to maintain soil structure and nature. The layers of soil which have microbes support growth of plants due to more water and fertility. Microbes in soil keep up water, the soil having microbes has higher water holding capacity. The humus is top layer of soil rich in microbes suitable for plant growth. This is because microbes produce natural organic fertilizers which are compatible and easy to absorb.and also fertility. Microbes decay the waste remnants in the soil and make it hard. All the fossil fuels are processed by microbes.