Epithet Epitaphs Category

Derxia Gummosa  is a bacterial strain named after   H.G. Derx the Dutch microbiologist who found out about its exhistence. Derx lived from 1894—1953 in Denmark and conducted his research there. Derxia can be grown at a ph 0f 5-9 and acidified and a ph of 4.5 or less. The bacteria has also been tested and was sucessful in fixing nitrogen. It takes generally 2-3 weeks to fix it and only makes a small amount, but proved much more successful than other strains of bacteria.

H.G Derx also did other important work in the field of microbiolgy. Derx published two papers in 1925 and 1926 on  Penicillium luten bacteria as well and wrote a book about their lifecycle in 1928. He also did extensive research on sporangous cell life, and made many advaces in culture growing methods for the labs of his day.

References:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00412286

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4547570?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

ttps://www.microbiologyresearch.org/docserver/fulltext/micro/58/2/mic-58-2-277.pdf?expires=1548752406&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=627304C4DDA0F0EE910C0DE869CD3738

Ingar Olsen is a Norwegian microbiologist and  Professor at the Institute of Oral Biology in Norway. Together with his own Olsen group and the  Forsyth Institute he has been involved in the detection of  more than 700 major bacterial species in the human mouth and has been linking various strains with oral diseases, oral health, enamel degradation, root carries and diversity between human populations. His work is an important part of the continuing effort to understand the human microbiome.

Olsen was involved in the discovery of   Olsenella and it was was named after him in 2001. It is  a Gram-positive, non-spore-forming, obligate anaerobic and non-motile bacterial genus from the family of Coriobacteriaceae that are shaped like elliptical rods.

1. “Ingar Olsen: Department of Oral Biology’. University of Oslo. 28 January 2019. Retrieved from:  https://www.odont.uio.no/iob/english/people/aca/ingaro/index.html
2. “Genus Olsenella”. LPSN Bacterio.net. 28 January 2019.
   Retrieved from: https://www.bacterio.net/olsenella.html
   

Borrelia mazzottii is named after French microbiologist Amédée Borrel.   Borrel was born in Cazouls-lès-Béziers, Hérault, France in 1867.   He studied natural sciences and medicine at the University of Montpellier and became a doctor at age 25 after writing a thesis on epithelioma.   In 1892, he became part of the research staff in Ilya Ilyich Metchnikoff’s lab at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.   There he performed research on tuberculosis, experimented with a possible vaccine for the bubonic plague, and investigated the potential use of antibody protection in experimental cerebral tetanus.   He was the laboratory chief of the microbiology course at the Pasteur Institute from 1896 to 1914, which put him in charge of cultivating and maintaining the collection of microbes in their library.   In 1919, he became the Chair of Bacteriology at the University of Strasbourg.   When he retired from that position, he returned to the Pasteur Institute and performed research on the causes of cancer until he died in 1936.   He is credited for some of the pioneer investigations on the viral theory of cancer.   The Borrelia genus consists of helical bacteria cells that are composed of 3-10 loose coils.   They are surrounded by a surface layer, an outer membrane, endoflagella, and a protoplasmic cylinder; they are Gram-stain-negative and are actively motile.   These bacteria cause tick-borne Lyme disease, relapsing fever, and louse-borne relapsing fever in people.   The species Borrelia mazzottii is named after Mexican physician, Luis Mazzotti, who recovered a relapsing fever spirochete in Mexico in 1953.

Krieg, N. R., Ludwig, W., Whitman, W., Hedlund, B. P., Paster, B. J., Staley, J. T., . . . Parte, A. (Eds.). (1984).  Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology(Vol. 4). Williams & Wilkins.

Revolvy, L. (n.d.). “Amédée Borrel” on Revolvy.com. Retrieved from https://www.revolvy.com/page/Amédée-Borrel

Wright, D. (2009). Borrels accidental legacy.  Clinical Microbiology and Infection,15(5), 397-399. doi:10.1111/j.1469-0691.2009.02818.x

Wolbachia are Gram-negative obligate parasitic bacteria found in nearly 60 percent of all insect species, including the common house fly and certain species of mosquitoes. They most notably infect the reproductive organs; the testes and ovaries of arthropods, insects and mosquitoes. Infection with the bacterial parasite can create infertility and or sterilization in mosquitoes and flies. Infection in females increases the rate of infected offspring, transmitted to female offspring only, increasing the spread of Wolbachia.  However, infection has also been proven to provided resistance to certain pathogens, such as the ones responsible for Zika virus and West Nile virus. Studies have been proposed and implemented using Wolbachia infected mosquitos as a vector control species to combat the spread of serious viral infections carried by mosquitos.

Wolbachia was identified by Marshall Hertig and Simeon Burt Wolbach in 1924 in infected mosquitos. Dr. Wolbach was an American pathologist and  researcher who was born in rural Nebraska. He received his MD degree from Harvard Medical School in 1903, after he travelled the world conducting research, he is credited with identifying the organism that caused the typhus epidemic of Europe in 1920.

Sources:

Simeon Burt Wolbach. Wikipedia. 08 May. 2018

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Burt_Wolbach

Wolbachia. Wikipedia. 06 Dec. 2018

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia

David Bruce was a Scottish pathologist and microbiologist born in Melbourne, Australia. He returned to Scotland at the age of five; Where he pursued a career in medicine and attended medical school. He worked as an assistant to a general practitioner in Surrey, England. After working in Surrey, he joined the Army medical services where he was a Surgeon captain.

Bruce was assigned to the island of Malta where he was responsible for the care of British soldiers. Upon his arrival, he witnessed an illness that caused body temperatures to rise to 41 °C during the night and normalize during the day. These symptoms would go for weeks and even caused deaths. Autopsy specimens from the liver and spleen yielded an organism that Bruce named micrococcus. Bruce tested micrococcus to see if this was the causative agent. He grew the organism in cultures and infected seven monkeys; four died and three lived who also mimicked the same symptoms (fever) that the humans had. He was then able to grow the same micrococcus from humans from the monkey’s tissues. He sent his finding to the Pasteur Institute identifying the causative agent as Micrococcus melitensis which was renamed to Brucella after him.

“David Bruce”.Wikwpedia, the free encyclopedia. 21 Oct.2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bruce_(microbiologist)

S Y, Tan. 2011. “David Bruce (1855-1931) discoverer of brucellosis”.  Signapore Med, 52(3): 138-139.

The genus derxia first described in 1960 by H. L. Jenson. Derxia Gummosa are gram-negative bacteria found in tropical soils. It was named in honor of Dutch microbiologist Henri George Derx born in 1894. He was an industrial chemist who researched microbiology and botany. He would during the Second World War be imprisoned in a concentration camp during part of 1943 and 1944. He would go on to contribute to a number of areas including the discovery of a new genus of sporobolomycetaceae which he named Itersonilia perplexans. He also contributed to the discovery diacetyl the flavoring agent of butter.

Olive, L. (1952). Studies on the Morphology and Cytology of Itersonilia perplexans Derx on JSTOR. [online] Jstor.org. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2481931?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

Web2.uwindsor.ca. (n.d.). Derxia gummosa. [online] Available at: https://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/biology/fackrell/Microbes/4260.htm [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

Barnett, J. and Robinow, C. (2002). A history of research on yeasts 4: cytology part I, 1890-1950. Yeast, [online] 19(2), pp.151-182. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/yea.813 [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

Farber, E. (1961). Albert Jan Kluyver His life and work. Interscience, [online] 133(3452), p.574. Available at: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/133/3452/574.3 [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

Sebaldella termitidis  is a bacteria named after the woman who discovered it, Madeleine Sebald. Sebald was a French biologist who discovered the bacteria in the intestines of termites in 1966. The word  termitidis  relates to bacteria found within the gut or intestines of termites. Madeleine Sebald has 22 different works and is part of 66 publications in four different languages. Her most recent publication was in 2016. Sebald isolated the bacteria as well as aided in sequencing its entire genome. She proceeded to published a paper in both French and English about the discovery. Sebald reported that the bacterium can degrade uric acid and plays a role in providing the termite who hosts in nitrogen.

Sebald, Madeleine 1930-. (1992, January 01). Retrieved January 26, 2019, from https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n91070787

Harmon-Smith, Miranda, et al. “Complete Genome Sequence of Sebaldella Termitidis Type Strain (NCTC 11300T).’ Standards in Genomic Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, 2010, pp. 220—227., doi:10.4056/sigs.811799.

Belnapia  rosea  is named after American microbiologist, Jayne Belnap, and  rosea,  after the pink-rosey colonies the bacterium grows on agar. Belnap received her undergraduate degrees, Biology and Natural History, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, her Masters of Science, Ecology Department at Stanford, and her PhD, Botany and Range Department, from Brigham Young University. Belnap had a strong interest for the ecology of ground soils, specifically, how land can be managed sustainably, while still being used for recreational uses like grazing, energy exploration, and development. Balnap has been with the Department of the Interior since 1987 and travels around the world to train land managers the best practices for dryland ecosystems.  

USGS Staff Profile.  U.S. Geological Survey, www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/jayne-belnap?qt-staff_profile_science_products=0#qt-staff_profile_science_products.

Jin, Rong, and Hong-Yu Liu Jing Su. “Description of Belnapia Rosea Sp. Nov. and Emended Description of the Genus Belnapia Reddy Et Al. 2006.’ International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, Microbiology Society, 1 Mar. 2012, ijs.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijs.0.031021-0.

Bartolomeo  Bizio was an Italian naturalist born in 1791 in a village near Vicenza. He was the son of a tailor who failed to follow in his fathers footsteps, and instead chose to become apprenticed to a local chemist. Taking a great interest in the chemical composition of the natural materials surrounding him, he is now regarded as being quite revolutionary. During his time he published more than 100 papers. Perhaps most notably, he conducted a series of experiments which culminated in the discovery of a bacteria which he dubbed Serratia marcescenssent. In a letter addressed to the “most Eminent Priest, Angelo Bellani,” Bizio demystified the phenomenon of the appearance of what was thought to be a spontaneously created red matter in corn meal that many in the religious community attributed to the “blood of christ.”

To honor his contributions to the field of microbiology a genera of species, Bizionia, are named after him. Among these species are a recently discovered bacteria,  Bizionia paragorgiae. Paragorgiae stemming from the latin paregoricus, meaning to soothe.  

Sources

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC379088/?page=1

https://ijs.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijs.0.63381-0

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01956459

https://www.etymonline.com/word/paregoric

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Bizio.JPG