microbiologic

Microbiologic is an adjective describing things pertaining to microbiology, the scientific discipline devoted to the study of microorganisms. Microbiology encompasses the biology of organisms too small to see with the naked eye, including bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, algae, and viruses (often studied separately in virology or phycology). The field covers their morphology, metabolism, genetics, ecology, and evolution, as well as the ways they interact with humans, animals, plants, and the environment. It also includes the study of microbial communities, such as microbiota, and their collective activities in natural and engineered systems.

Common subfields include bacteriology, virology, mycology, and protozoology, along with microbial genetics, microbial physiology, environmental microbiology, industrial microbiology, clinical microbiology, and immunomicrobial research. Methods span culture-based techniques, microscopy, staining, and a wide range of molecular tools such as PCR, sequencing, metagenomics, and proteomics. Culturing and susceptibility testing remain core practices in clinical microbiology for identifying pathogens and guiding therapy, while sequencing-based approaches illuminate evolutionary relationships and track outbreaks.

Applications are broad, including disease diagnosis and prevention, food safety and fermentation, environmental remediation, and biotechnological production of enzymes, medicines, and biofuels. The field has a long history, from early germ theory and advances by Pasteur and Koch to modern genomic and synthetic biology approaches. Safety and ethics govern microbiologic research through biosafety levels, containment practices, and regulatory oversight.