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We are adding to the Koch's Postulates Article

History: While Koch’s Postulates have served the microbiology community well for nearly two centuries, new discoveries of methods of infections as a result of Koch and many others’ hard work have shown that diseases and certain conditions are not always caused by one lonesome microbe species. According to a study done by Oliver A. Todd and Brain M Peters, a newly discovered interaction between the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus and “fungal opportunist” Candida albicans is being considered a co-infection that is found in the bodies of sick patients who suffer from different conditions [2019]. This kind of synergism was found to be lethal in a separate study conducted by Carlson on mice. When mice were infected with the two mentioned pathogens above independently, sickness resulted but the mice were able to recover. When infected with both pathogens together, the mice had nearly a 100% mortality rate. This goes to show that some pathogens cannot be as easily isolated, and/ or may need extra techniques and steps that may better prove causation of the disease.

Limitation: Koch's postulates are also limited in their ability to be effective when evaluating biofilms, Somni cells, viruses and confection, and synergism. With biofilms, their cultivation process is very unique because they have to be cultivated by molecular methods rather than traditional methods. The problem with this is that these alternative methods do not detect the cause of infection; which therefore interferes with the third postulate that states microorganisms should cause disease. In the case of Somnicells and viruses, they can not be cultured. The Somnicells, also called sleeping cells, become dormant due to strain on the cell. This state of sleep prevents the cell from growing in the culture. This is very similar to how viruses can not grow in axenic culture. Viruses must be living to replicate, and the culture is not a suitable host for that.

Revision: As for revisions Allyson Byrd and Julia Segre have some ideas for how we should adapt the postulates to make them more accurate for today’s world. Their revisions have to do with the third postulate; they don’t agree that a pathogen will always cause disease. Their first revision has to do with colonization resistance. There is an organism that feeds off of the host and protects it from pathogens that would have caused disease if the organism was not attached to the host. Their second revision is that a community of microbes could help inhibit pathogens even further. Similar to Byrd and Segre, Thomas Rivers had revisions to Koch’s Postulates. He believed, even though the original postulates were made as a guide, they were actually an obstacle. Rivers wanted to show the link between viruses and diseases. Rivers cultivated his own Postulates; the first one stated that the virus must be connected to disease consistently. Secondly, the outcome of experimentation must indicate that the virus is directly responsible for the disease.