Those Who Can See Invisible Can Do Impossible!

Abstract

Early history of microbiology is a story of some common people, like amateur lens grinders, janitors, hobbyists, chemists, physicians, botanists and housewives with a quest for discovery. These early explorers were sometimes driven by chance or curiosity, and sometimes by a problem for which no one had an answer at that point of time [1]. Now we know that microbes are pervasive. They are everywhere, in land, water and air. Microbes play a major role in the life history of humans, animals, and plants, in the quality and safety of our food supplies, in the health and sustainability of our air, land, and water; in bio-warfare and national security. Microbiology in twentieth century has evolved into an extremely interactive discipline among the sciences. Today, we realize that we are outnumbered by the microbial community; that each of us has a microbiota which exceeds in numbers our own body cells. It is estimated that nine out of ten cells in our body are microbes. Our own body microbes, collectively called as ‘Human Microbiome’, carry 100 times as many genes as our own DNA, and also exceed in sheer diversity of those genes [2]. Understanding how the magic balance between the gastrointestinal microbiota and human body influences human health and disease is of prime importance. Some microbes make us sick which is known to us since a very long time, but we realized only recently how the microbial genes affect how much energy we absorb from our foods [3] and how microbes and viruses modulate our immune system in a positive manner [4]. The understanding of variability between individuals and its implication will be one of the most challenging tasks, which will go far beyond understanding mechanisms of microbial pathogenesis in infectious diseases [5]. I have no doubt that the next few years will reveal remarkable findings related to our body microbiota, which will benefit public health tremendously. The use of probiotics, prebiotics, and neutraceuticals throughout the world, including India, has become widespread without any in-depth understanding of their use. However, the future will reveal to us the true relationship. The high complexity of the microbial communities in various ecological niches will continue to challenge us for decades, since most of them are unculturable. According to an estimate more than 99% of microbes in the environment cannot be cultured in artificial media in the laboratory, a characteristic that limits our understanding of microbial physiology, genetics, molecular biology and community ecology [6]. One way to address this problem is metagenomics, the culture-independent cloning and analysis of microbial DNA extracted directly from an environmental sample. However, metagenomics has its limitation as is evident from several studies including the most ambitious G. Prasad (&) Association of Microbiologists of India, ADG (AH), ICAR, Krishi Bhavan, New Delhi, India e-mail: gprasad1986@gmail.com