(not so) Visible world

how to best see what is not so much seen

Microrganisms are one of the simplests ways of life. And even though we are not able to see most of them with naked eye, they are present in great amounts in the environment and in our body, maintaing our health (or making us sick).

Microrganisms, especially bacterias and fungi, and its metabolism derivatives, can be used to make food, dye fabric, serve as indicator of pollution and make toothpaste and make-up, for example. In human body, we have different microrganisms that live together without making us any harm - on the contrary, they maintain the health of the intestine and participate in the immune system, beyond having other functions.

However, when we get in touch with pathogenic microrganisms and/ or its toxins, or when our immune system does not work as it is supposed to, we can develop diseases that need to be identified and treated correctly.

The identification of microrganisms is very important, since we need to know which agent is responsible for the infection and its susceptibility to antimicrobials. However, the identification process can be a challenge in some cases, since microrganisms have different time of growth in the laboratory and some of them cannot be cultered, which means that we have to perform different types of investigation.