The world has recently been on high alert, not only because of disasters, violence, and war, but increasingly because of threats from microorganisms. Acts of terrorism using biological agents such as anthrax have been a major focus of concern, especially since events have now proved beyond a doubt that these agents are readily available and can be released inconspicuously into public places. To complicate matters, microbes from natural sources continue to pose emerging threats to public health. Over the past 30 years, nearly 20 new infectious agents have appeared suddenly and unexpectedly. Examples such as the agents of AIDS and SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) are new viruses that apparently originated from animals and have become infectious to humans. At the outset of increased reports of a new or suspected infectious disease, the pressure is immediately on medical science to discover the causative agent and possibly to find a treatment for the disease. The response to such threats invariably falls to the laboratories around the world that have the technical expertise to detect and identify the microbe rapidly and accurately. The reality is that without their basic tools—microscopes, media, biochemical and genetic tests—tracking down the agents of disease or developing treatments for them would be an impossible endeavor.

Any area that deals with microorganisms is faced with this same challenge. We need to be able to observe and analyze not just agents of disease, but those involved in such diverse areas as biotechnology, genetics, microbial ecology, research, and agriculture. In this chapter we address the unique strategies that have grown up around the care, feeding, and study of microbes in the laboratory.