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1. In agriculture
- Is concerned with the relationships between microbes and domesticated plants and animals.
- Plant specialists focus on plant diseases, soil fertility and nutritional interactions.
- Animal specialists work with the infectious diseases and other associations animals have with micro-organisms (e.g. cellulose digestion in ruminants).
2. Food & Dairy Technology
- These involve the ecological and practical roles of microbes in food and food products.
- Food microbiologists are concerned with the effects of microbes in areas such as food spoilage, food borne diseases/poisoning and food preservation.
3. Public health and epidemiology
This involves monitoring and control of the spread of diseases in communities and creating awareness.
4. Immunology
- Studies the complex web of protective substances and cells produced in response to infection. It includes such disease areas as vaccination, blood testing and allergy.
5. Biotechnology/ Industrial microbiology
- The process of using the metabolisms of living things to obtain a desired product.
- It is a tool used in industrial microbiology which is concerned with the uses of microbes to produce or harvest large quantities of substances such as beer, vitamins, amino acids, drugs and enzymes.
6. Genetic Engineering and recombinant + DNA Technology
These involve techniques that deliberately alter the genetic make up of organisms by man, to create totally new substances and develop organisms with unique methods of synthesis and adaptation – GMOs.
NB: This is the most powerful and rapidly growing area in modern microbiology.
7. Bioremediation
Microbes are used to clean up pollutants and wastes in natural environments .e.g wastewater treatment
8. Bio mining / Bioleaching
Microbes are used in extraction of rare metals from their low grade ores.
9. Aquatic microbiology
Explores the ecology of natural waters as well as the impact of microbes in water purity and treatment. (Microbes as indicators of fecal contamination in water)
10. Bioterrorism/biological warfare– use of micro-organisms as weapons of mass destruction. E.g. endospores of Bacillus anthracis.
Kavungya answered the question on March 12, 2019 at 13:08