Immunology and Cell Biology

Molecular and Cellular microbiology

Molecular microbiology is the branch of microbiology devoted to the study of the molecular basis of the physiological processes that occur in microorganisms Molecular techniques have had a direct influence on the clinical practice of medical microbiology.

Cellular microbiology is a discipline that bridges microbiology and cell biology. Cellular microbiology attempts to use pathogenic microbes as tools for cell-biology research, and to employ cell-biology methods to understand the pathogenicity of microbes. Toxins and virulence factors from microbes have been used for decades to influence processes in eukaryotic cells and to study them. It has increasingly appeared that applying a purified toxin on a cell does not always provide the complete picture, and that understanding the role of the toxin in pathogenicity, the way the toxin promotes the microbe, the way the toxin is produced and the co-evolution of the toxin and its host-cell counterparts, is crucial.