Metagenomics (also referred to as environmental and community genomics) is the genomic
analysis of microorganisms by direct extraction and cloning of DNA from an assemblage of …

Metchnikoff's phagocytosis theory was less an explanation of host defence than a proposal
that might account for establishing and maintaining organismal'harmony'. By tracing the …

What counts as an individual in the living world? What does it mean for a living thing to
remain the same through time, while constantly changing? These questions are the province …

Written by an immunologist, A History of Immunology traces the concept of immunity from
ancient times up to the present day, examining how changing concepts and technologies …

In 1955, René Dubos famously expressed his “second thoughts on the germ theory”,
attributing infectious diseases to various “changing circumstances” that weaken the host by …

The key problem in human infectious diseases was posed at the turn of the 20th century:
their pathogenesis. For almost any given virus, bacterium, fungus, or parasite, life …

Microbes and microbiology are seldom encountered in philosophical accounts of the life
sciences. Although microbiology is a well-established science and microbes the basis of life …

" Ideas tumble out of Porter like wonders from some scholarly horn of plenty."—Sherwin B.
Nuland, The New Republic An eminently readable, entertaining romp through the history of …

Until quite recently and since the late 19th century, medical microbiology has been based on
the assumption that some micro-organisms are pathogens and others are not. This binary …

In the 1940s and 1950s, British and American journals published a flood of papers by
doctors, pathologists, geneticists and anthropologists debating the virtues of two competing …