In our Microbiology 102 course at UW-Madison, we inform students at the start that – in the lab – we are only working with the relatively small universe of bacterial species that are "easy to grow." Far from being of limited consequence, they are the type of organism that (depending on the particular species) can proliferate in food (causing spoilage), the general environment (participating in various levels of biodegradation), and us (causing disease) – and can also "contaminate" things in general. These organisms can be readily isolated from natural samples and food products as we will find out from time to time. What we learn from the organisms that we study in our lab can apply to bacteria in general (including those that cannot be cultured in a lab at all) and also higher forms of life such as us. Unlike other introductory lab courses, we go beyond the usual respiring and fermenting organisms and also study phototrophs, specifically the ubiquitous purple non-sulfur photosynthetic bacteria. We are filling in "the big picture" as one sees as the course progresses – not memorizing a bunch of trivia that we can forget about after each quiz.

The following links to summaries of microbiological concepts are provided here for those who might appreciate a somewhat organized approach to teaching these things. What too-often passes for instruction on these topics is self-contradictory with a lot of micromanipulation to cover what can be perceived as "exceptions" or "special cases" when they may not be so. Cases in point:

• Check out our pages on the subject of dilution theory and note that the same simple principles apply universally.
  
  
• The same applies to pH-based differential media. As an example, the effects of aerobic deamination in differential media should not have to wait to be mentioned when the course gets to KIA (or TSI), as that process shows its effect in organic media throughout the semester.

These Selected General Bacteriology Topics form the substance of www.jlindquist.net/generalmicro and were originally at www.bact.wisc.edu way back in the 1900s:

• Dilution Theory
  
• Differential Media
  
• Identification of Bacteria
  
• Nutrition & Cultivation of Bacteria
  
• Catabolism
  
• Cycles of Elements
  
• Correct Usage of Terms
  
• Aseptic Technique Procedures (with movies!)
  
• Water Availability for Microbes in Foods
  
• Sauerkraut Fermentation
  
• Sausage Fermentation
  

Reference pages about certain general topics that have been oriented more specifically to the Bacteriology 102 course are on the old Bacteriology 102 Site which is at www.splammo.net/bact102 (and was also formerly at www.bact.wisc.edu). This "archived" site has its home page here and includes the following:

• Selected Microbial Groups and the Enrichment & Isolation Experiments are listed in detail on the Bacteriological Site Outline. Among the pages are an Explanation of the General Concept of Enrichment and Isolation, the Purple Non-Sulfur Photosynthetic Bacteria and Bacillus.
  
• A possible FAQ page to include here at jlindquist.net/generalmicro has its "rough draft" here.
  
• Growth Curves: This page will become more generalized and migrate here.
  
• What is a CFU?
  
• Dichotomous keys, flow charts and tables.
  
• Guides to using the "regular microscope" and the phase-contrast microscope.
  
• The use of scientific notation.

Under development is the beta-galactosidase page which is presently hidden away here.

Draining the web of its cesspool of piracy and plagiarism is long overdue. There exist certain publicly-funded .edu sites which copy old editions (circa 2000) of many of the above-listed pages without authorization. Improvements and changes in our teaching methods and course content are not reflected. Links are broken and images are missing. Unfortunately these pages rank high with search engines, but happily the sites are easily detected as just described.

Page last modified on 3/1/10 at 11:30 AM, CST.
John Lindquist:  homepage, complete site outline
E-mail: lindquis @ bact.wisc.edu or
jlindquist001 @ gmail.com
Department of Bacteriology, U.W.-Madison