Microbiology
What is Microbiology?
Why do bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites cause disease? How do microbes stimulate our immune system to fight off infection? Which microbes are useful to us in food production? How are bacteria and fungi linked with the carbon and nitrogen cycles on earth? How do antibiotics control infections and why can bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics we use? These and many other questions will be answered in depth over the three years of your Microbiology degree in Manchester.
Bacteria and viruses are continuously evolving to produce new strains that can evade our immune system and new strains can produce new diseases that suddenly develop into epidemics which can affect a large number of people.
Microbiologists (bacteriologists, virologists, mycologists and parasitologists) are needed to do the research understand the molecular basis of diseases and to develop vaccines and to allow us to prevent future disease outbreaks. For these reasons and many more, university trained microbiologists are essential for the future battle against diseases world wide and in order to exploit microbes in the production of food – just to give a few good reasons for studying microbiology. There are of course many more reasons!
You can find out more about careers in Microbiology by going to the Society for General Microbiology website where you will find out about a range of careers if you follow the ‘education and careers’ link.
S. epidermis attaching to a catheter inside a blood vessel. Bacteria grow on the catheter and shed into the blood stream to cause infection.