Clinical microbiology in detection and identification of emerging microbial pathogens: past, present and future

Figures & data

Table 1. Historical figures in clinical microbiology.

	Scientist	Year of birth and death	Major contributions in clinical microbiology
	Anton van Leeuwenhoek	1632–1723	Invented microscope to observe microorganisms
	Louis Pasteur	1822–1895	Found microorganisms in infected patients
	Robert Koch	1843–1910	Established three criteria for determining a causative relationship between a microbe and a disease
	Hans Christian Gram	1853–1938	Invented the Gram stain
	Julius Richard Petri	1852–1921	Invented Petri dishes to start in vitro culture
	John Franklin Enders	1897–1985	Applied cell culture techniques for isolation and growth of viruses
	Feifan Tang	1897–1958	Discovered and cultured the pathogen causing trachoma
	Kary Banks Mullis	1944–2019	Invented polymerase chain reaction for in vitro nucleic acid amplification

Table 2. Microbiomic technology main contents. MALDI-TOF MS, matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry.

	Technology	Target molecule	Question addressed	Output	Main methods	Selected references
	Genomics	DNA	Infection potential	DNA sequences	DNA sequencing	[69,71,72]
	Transcriptomics	RNA	Infection strategy	Transcription of text	RNA sequencing, quantitative transcription PCR	[77,82,84]
	Proteomics	Protein	Infection process	Protein profiles	MALDI-TOF MS	[83,89,90]
	Metabolomics	Metabolites	Infection outcome	Metabolic text	Gas or liquid phase mass spectrometry	[78–80]

Figure 1. Infection is the result of the interaction between the pathogen, the host and the environment. CPD, cell population data; MDW, monocyte distribution width.

Figure 2. Polarized clinical microbiology practice in the near future with rapid, random-access tests done at point of care (left) and with batched, large volumes of tests done at central laboratory (right).

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