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How Did Stanley Falkow Contribute To The Spread Of Bacterial Pathogens?

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Stanley Falkow is an American scientist, born in 1934 in New York, who revolutionized the world of molecular biology and paved the way to understanding pathogens and infectious diseases.
He first took interest in the world of microbes at age 11, and stopped never since. His undergraduate studies were completed with excellence at the University of Maine, followed by PhD research at Brown University. In the following years, he continued his work on bacteria in several institutes including the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Georgetown University, University of Washington, and today he is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in the department of Microbiology.

Discoveries and Contributions:
One of Falkow's first and key discoveries, around the early 1960's, was finding episomic pieces of DNA that can be replicated independently of the chromosome1 and that different types of bacteria (Salmonella Typhosa, Serratia Marcescens2, Escherichia coli3, Proteus I.4) may transfer and acquire these genes amongst them. This DNA piece, which is the plasmid, and its characteristics and manipulation have redefined the way researchers use molecular biology, and the …show more content…

Consequently, foresaw the problem with the spread of antibiotic resistance and he even consulted the FDA, in the 1970's, to ban antibiotics from animal feed6. Then, along with Magdalene So, they cloned and studied the E. coli heat-stable enterotoxin7, which gave way to begin grasping bacterial pathogenicity and subsequently to the formulation of the 'Molecular Koch's Postulates.' These complement the original Koch's postulates (from the year 1882) that establish cause and effect of pathogen diseases. The 'Molecular Koch's Postulates' define the basic questions and guidelines that need to be followed when researching molecular

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