Athanasius Kircher (1601 - 1680), German Jesuit scholar: In his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658 he noted the presence of "little worms" or "animalcules" in the blood, and concluded that disease was caused by microorganisms.
Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703), English natural philosopher and polymath: using an early microscope he discovered cells in living plant tissue.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723), Dutch tradesman and scientist: best known for his work on the improvement of the microscope and for his contributions towards the establishment of microbiology. Using his microscopes, he was the first to observe and describe micro-organisms, muscle fibers, bacteria and spermatozoa.
Edward Jenner (1749 - 1823), English surgeon: invented the smallpox vaccine.
Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 - 1865), Hungarian physician: early pioneer of antiseptic procedures - advocated washing hands in order to stop the spread of disease.
Louis Pasteur (1822 - 1895), French chemist and microbiologist: created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax.
Ferdinand Cohn (1828 - 1898), German botanist: his classification of bacteria into four groups based on shape (sphericals, short rods, threads, and spirals) is still in use today. He was also the first to classify algae as plants.
Joseph Lister (1827 - 1912), British surgeon: pioneered antiseptic surgery.
Robert Koch * (1843 - 1910), German physician: discovered the transmission of disease by bacteria.
Hans Christian Gram (1850 - 1938), Danish bacteriologist: invented Gram staining (a method of staining bacteria that played a major role in classifying bacteria).
Julius Richard Petri (1852 - 1921), German bacteriologist: invented the Petri dish (a shallow glass or plastic lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells and bacteria).
Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky (1864-1920), Russian botanist: discovered viruses, the tobacco mosaic virus in 1892.
Alexander Fleming * (1881 - 1955), Scottish biologist and pharmacologist: the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin in 1928.
Walter Reed (1851 - 1902), U.S. Army physician: discovered in 1900 that the yellow fever is transmitted by a particular mosquito species, rather than by direct contact.
Charles Chamberland (1851 - 1908), French microbiologist: developed in 1884 a type of filtration known as the Chamberland filter which had pores smaller than bacteria, and made it possible to pass a solution containing bacteria through the filter and have them completely removed from the solution - useful in detecting bacteria and virus activity.
Paul Ehrlich * (1854 - 1915), German hematologist, immunologist, and chemotherapist: noted for curing syphilis (a sexually transmitted infection) and for coining the term chemotherapy.
Martinus Beijerinck (1851 - 1931), Dutch microbiologist and botanist: first to demonstrate the nitrogen-fixing capability of some bacteria species.
Sergei Winogradsky (1856 - 1953), Ukrainian-Russian microbiologist: discovered sulfur-oxidizing bacteria - found that Beggiatoa (bacteria) oxidized hydrogen sulfide (H2S) as an energy source.
* Nobel laureates
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