An interactive teaching timeline

Milestones in
Microbiology

Three centuries. Sixteen scientists. One invisible world brought into focus.
Follow how a curiosity about “wee beasties” became the science that gave us sterile technique, germ theory and antibiotics.

16Scientists
1632–1953Years covered
4Great eras
Begin the journey

Four eras of discovery

Each era answered a question the previous one could not.

Where the story goes next

The timeline stops in 1953, the same year the structure of DNA was published. What began with a draper grinding lenses in Delft had, within three centuries, become a science capable of reading and rewriting the instructions inside a cell. Sequencing, recombinant DNA, the microbiome and CRISPR are all continuations of the same line of questioning: what is out there, what does it do, and how do we work with it?

Every technique in your practical class was somebody's discovery once.

Image credits

Portraits from Wikimedia Commons, public domain or Creative Commons. Three scientists have no free portrait and use a labelled placeholder.

Full attributions