Martinus Beijerinck

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"Beijerinck" redirects here. For the lunar crater, see Beijerinck (crater).

Martinus Beijerinck
Wageningen University

Delft School of Microbiology (founder)
The Laboratory of Microbiology in Delft, where Beijerinck worked from 1897 to 1921.

Martinus Willem Beijerinck (Dutch pronunciation:

viruses (1898), which he called "contagium vivum fluidum
".

Life

Early life and education

Born in

University of Leiden in 1877.[1]

At the time, Delft, then a

Wageningen University) and later at the Polytechnische Hogeschool Delft (Delft Polytechnic, currently Delft University of Technology) (from 1895). He established the Delft School of Microbiology. His studies of agricultural and industrial microbiology yielded fundamental discoveries in the field of biology. His achievements have been perhaps unfairly overshadowed by those of his contemporaries, Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur
, because unlike them, Beijerinck never studied human disease.

In 1877, he wrote his first notable research paper, discussing plant galls. The paper later became the basis for his doctoral dissertation.[2]

In 1885 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[3]

Scientific career

Beijerinck working in his laboratory

He is considered one of the founders of

bacterium.[8]

His results were in accordance with the similar observation made by

Wendell Stanley in 1935, the first electron micrographs of TMV produced in 1939 and the first X-ray crystallographic analysis
of TMV performed in 1941 proved that the virus was particulate.

plants and bacteria
.

Beijerinck discovered the phenomenon of bacterial

biogeochemical cycles. Spirillum desulfuricans, now known as Desulfovibrio desulfuricans,[12]
the first known sulfate-reducing bacterium, was isolated and described by Beijerinck.

Beijerinck invented the

microbes from the environment. He is often incorrectly credited with framing the microbial ecology idea that "everything is everywhere, but, the environment selects", which was stated by Lourens Baas Becking.[13][14]

Personal life

Beijerinck was a socially eccentric figure. He was verbally abusive to students, never married, and had few professional collaborations. He was also known for his

ascetic lifestyle and his view of science and marriage being incompatible. His low popularity with his students and their parents periodically depressed him, as he very much loved spreading his enthusiasm for biology in the classroom. After his retirement at the Delft School of Microbiology in 1921, at age 70, he moved to Gorssel where he lived for the rest of his life, together with his two sisters.[15]

Recognition

Beijerinckia (a genus of bacteria),[16] Beijerinckiaceae (a family of Hyphomicrobiales), and Beijerinck crater are named after him.

The

M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize
(M.W. Beijerinck Virologie Prijs) is awarded in his honor.

See also

References

  1. American Society For Microbiology: 539––543. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
  2. PMID 10212948
    .
  3. ^ "Martinus Willem Beijerinck (1851 - 1931)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 19 July 2015.
  4. PMID 1629947
    .
  5. S2CID 23685370
    .
  6. ISBN 978-981-02-1313-8. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 4 February 2012. Retrieved 17 October 2011.
  7. ISBN 0-7876-6540-1
    . Beijerinck asserted that the virus was liquid, but this theory was later disproved by Wendell Stanley, who demonstrated the particulate nature of viruses. Beijerinck, nevertheless, set the stage for twentieth-century virologists to uncover the secrets of viral pathogens now known to cause a wide range of plant and animal (including human) diseases
  8. ^ Beijerinck, M. W. (1898). "Über ein Contagium vivum fluidum als Ursache der Fleckenkrankheit der Tabaksblätter" (PDF). Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam (in German). 65: 1–22. Translated into English in Johnson, J., Ed. (1942) Phytopathological classics. (St. Paul, Minnesota: American Phytopathological Society) No. 7, pp. 33–52 (St. Paul, Minnesota)
  9. ^ Iwanowski, D. (1892). "Über die Mosaikkrankheit der Tabakspflanze". Bulletin Scientifique Publié Par l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg. Nouvelle Série III (in German and Russian). 35. St. Petersburg: 67–70. Translated into English in Johnson, J., Ed. (1942) Phytopathological classics (St. Paul, Minnesota: American Phytopathological Society) No. 7, pp. 27–-30.
  10. ISBN 9780226120256. Archived
    from the original on 11 December 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  11. ^ Beijerinck, M.W, 1901, Über oligonitrophile Mikroben, Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infektionskrankheiten und Hygiene, Abteilung II, Vol 7, pp. 561–582
  12. ^ Jean, Euzeby. "Genus Desulfovibrio". List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature. Retrieved 6 November 2014.
  13. PMID 16584487
    .
  14. ^ Bass-Becking, Lourens G.M. (1934). "Geobiologie of inleiding tot de milieukunde". The Hague: W.P. Van Stockum & Zoon. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ Geertje Dekkers (24 March 2020). "De man die het virus bedacht" (in Dutch).
  16. ISBN 9781118960608. Archived
    from the original on 11 December 2020. Retrieved 11 December 2020.

External links

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