Microbe Hunters - Then and Now

From the beginning of recorded time until the last fifty years, many diseases whose cause proved to be viral continuously produced suffering in the form of acute and chronic diseases and death. By the onset of the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, a biomedical and economic revolution occurred during which many of these epidemics came under control through the administration of vaccines.

Microbe Huntersthen and now provides an overview of discoveries in animal and plant viruses, bacteria, parasites, and other issues, including prion diseases and mucosal immunity. Moreover, it points to the direction of further research, as exemplified by Kilbourne's comments: "The somewhat untidy packages of RNA that we call influenza viruses may have been hunted down, but they dissemble even as we study them. Today's hunters find that the chase is still on as they pursue the protean proteins of an ephemeral quarry," and by Weller's view: "It is clear that the age of discovery of new viruses of pediatric importance persists as it did half a century ago. What is different is the vast spectrum of molecular tools available to the modern microbe hunter."