So in this section, we are going to talk about the microbiology today, the diversity and the sub-disciplines that we see. So microbiology, of course, is diverse. Research in both basic and applied microbiology has an impact on many fields, including medicine, agriculture, food science, ecology, genetics.
biochemistry, molecular biology. So there's a lot of areas impacted with the study of microbiology. Molecular and genomic methods of studying microbes have really led to a second golden age of microbiology. So this is where you can get manipulation of DNA and microorganisms. And this is central to studying their relationship in nature.
The genome, which is all of the genetic information of an organism, can be analyzed using methods leading to the determination of the base sequence of genes. Genomic analysis defines functions of genes, the regulation, and how they form biological systems. And there's several different... fields of microbiology. Medical microbiology, which is the study of infectious disease in humans and animals, identifying the causative agent and planning measures for their control.
There's public health microbiology and epidemiology. This is the study of the mechanisms by which disease spread. and monitoring the amount of disease in a particular population. Immunology is studying how the body's immune system protects against infectious disease. This includes studying allergies and autoimmune diseases.
Microbial Ecology study of the ecological role of microbes in biogeochemical cycles and their interactions. Agricultural microbiology, study of the impact of microbes on agriculture. This includes aspects of nutrient cycles, animal husbandry, and plant. pathogens.
And we also have food microbiology. So the study of the use of microbes in food production, how food spoils and then foodborne diseases. Industrial microbiology is important because this is where...
The study of use of microorganisms in manufacturing materials like antibiotics, vaccines, chemicals, enzymes, vitamins, and other products are important. So there is a lot of information here of industrial use. And there's more basic research fields of microbiology. Again, the microbial physiology, microbial genetics and molecular biology, and of course, bioinformatics.
And microbes are a model system for genomes, for genomic study. So this is the slide listed as take home message. So if you have questions about. this material out of chapter one, let me know so that we can take care of it.