I know of very few books in which the name of the original author has ended up being included in the title itself. The "Brock" (Brock Biology of Microorganisms) is now in its 16th edition. Many of us have studied or taught microbiology with the pioneering textbook Biology of Microorganisms that you published for the first time Thomas Brock in 1970. On April 4, he passed away at the age of 95.
Brock can easily be considered the father of Extremophilic microbiology. He pioneered the study of microbes that live and need high temperatures, hyperthermophiles, when investigating the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park in the United States At the end of the 1960s, Brock discovered the existence of proteins and nucleic acids in hot springs at high temperatures and proposed that they were not just mineral remains but corresponded to microorganisms that required those temperatures for their growth. The results of their work were published in an article in May 1967 (Micro-organisms adapted to High Temperatures. Thomas D Brock. Nature 1967, 214: 882–885), which has ended up being fundamental to understand the evolution of microorganisms.
One of those bacteria discovered by Brock was Thermocrinis ruber, a chemolytotroph capable of oxidizing sulfur and using oxygen as an electron acceptor, and whose optimum growth temperature is 80ºC. And another representative of hypertemophiles, Thermus aquaticus, was also discovered by Brock in Yellowstone. This bacterium was the source of the famous Taq DNA polymerase used in the PCR technique.
Brock was an assistant professor of bacteriology at Indiana University, where he became a professor in 1964. He later transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was chair of the Department of Bacteriology and ended up as a professor emeritus. Rest in peace, master.
ILG
No comment yet, add your voice below!