Martinus Beijerinck

Martinus Beijerinck

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Martinus Beijerinck

Martinus Willem Beijerinck (March 16, 1851 - January 1, 1931) was a Dutch microbiologist and botanist. He was born in Amsterdam.

Beijerinck studied at Leiden University and became a teacher in microbiology at the Agricultural School in Wageningen (now 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 microbiology 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.

He is considered the founder of virology. He discovered viruses in 1898 by proving in filtration experiments that the tobacco mosaic disease is caused by something smaller than a bacterium. He named that new pathogen virus. (Dimitri Ivanovski discovered viruses in 1892, but failed to report his findings.) Beijerinck maintained that viruses were liquid in nature, a theory later discredited by Wendell Stanley, who proved they were particulate.^[1]

Beijerinck also discovered nitrogen fixation, the process by which diatomic nitrogen gas is converted to ammonium and becomes available to plants. Bacteria perform nitrogen fixation, dwelling inside root nodules of certain plants (legumes). In addition to having discovered a biochemial reaction vital to soil fertility and agriculture, Beijerinck revealed this archetypical example of symbiosis between plants and bacteria.

Beijerinck discovered the phenomenon of bacterial sulfate reduction, a form of anaerobic respiration. He learned that bacteria could use sulfate as a terminal electron acceptor, instead of oxygen. This discovery has had an important impact on our current understanding of biogeochemical cycles. Spirillum desulfuricans, the first known sulfate-reducing bacterium, was isolated and described by Beijerinck.

Beijerinck invented the enrichment culture, a fundamental method of studying microbes from the environment. He is often incorrectly credited with framing the microbial ecology idea that "everything is everywhere, the environment decides," which was stated by Lourens Bass-Becking.^[2]^[3]

Beijerinck was a socially awkward 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 periodically depressed him, as he very much loved spreading his enthusiasm for biology in the classroom.