The world of microbiology wouldn’t have existed without one particular instrument. The discovery of that instrument led to the discovery of a subfield of biology. It wasn’t a simple route. How different was it to visualize the structure of microorganisms than when compared today? How did one advanced version of that instrument help us see the beauty of microorganisms? Let’s find out.
If you have studied biology at least up to high school, you already know what instrument I am referring to; if you have not got the answer, that’s fine! That instrument is the microscope. All the microscopes work on the same principle where particles are smaller in size when compared to the sample and move at high speeds. After striking the object, the object absorbs some particles, and others get reflected that form the image in the microscope. The world of microbiology aged so well because microscopes helped scientists visualize and understand microorganisms.
A father-son duo, Hans and Janssen, developed the first-ever microscope. They invented the compound microscope that gave a magnification from 3x to 5x. Steven Ruzin, a microscopist, says that those microscopes had terrible resolutions and would rather have used a hand-held magnifying glass instead. The development of microscopes came a century later. Using the developed microscope, Robert Hooke discovered the cell in 1665. That microscope could get him 270x magnification. He famously said, “By the help of microscopes, there is nothing so small as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible world discovered to the understanding.” It wasn’t easy for him mentally. He was made fun of by some readers of “Micrographia” for spending £2000 on a microscope to see mites in cheese. Then, many of them did not understand microbiology.
Even after the foundation of microbiology as a genre of biology, the scientists could not visualize a microorganism properly. That was always a problem that created a way for Electron Microscopes for microbiology.
Two German Scientists, Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll found that electrons were more effective in obtaining higher resolution and better images than previously used photons.
“Needs keep evolving as a man becomes more curious”- with the years passing, the electron microscopes were so accurate that they would give the best visual experience to the user. Now, we had different requirements. We wanted 3D images. Dubochet, Franck, and Henderson discovered a method of microscopy, “The Cryo-EM”. It still used the same principles of an electron microscope. The sample was cooled down to cryogenic temperatures and then viewed under the microscope, which guaranteed to obtain exact 3D images like when they would exist in the real world.
The actual depth of microscopy is not known. We are on the journey to find an accurate imaging method that would fulfill our needs (at least for some years to come)!
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