Martinus Willem Beijerinck (, 16 March 1851 – 1 January 1931) was a Dutch

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Ancient Greek, Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of Microorganism, microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, f ...

and

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

who was one of the founders of

virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

and

environmental microbiology A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

. He is credited with the discovery of

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

, which he called "''

contagium vivum fluidum ''Contagium vivum fluidum'' (Latin: "contagious living fluid") was a phrase first used to describe a virus, and underlined its ability to slip through the finest-mesh filters then available, giving it almost liquid properties. Martinus Beijerinck ...

''".

Life

Early life and education

Born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, Beijerinck studied at the Technical School of Delft, where he was awarded the degree of Chemical Engineer in 1872. He obtained his Doctor of Science degree from the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Le ...

in 1877. At the time, Delft, then a

Polytechnic Polytechnic is most commonly used to refer to schools, colleges, or universities that qualify as an institute of technology or vocational university also sometimes called universities of applied sciences. Polytechnic may also refer to: Educatio ...

, did not have the right to confer doctorates, so Leiden did this for them. He became a teacher in microbiology at the Agricultural School in Wageningen (now

Wageningen University Wageningen University & Research (also known as Wageningen UR; abbreviation: WUR) is a public university in Wageningen, Netherlands, specializing in life sciences with a focus on agriculture, technical and engineering subjects. It is a globally ...

) and later at the ''Polytechnische Hogeschool Delft'' (Delft Polytechnic, currently

Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

) (from 1895). He established the Delft School of Microbiology. His studies of agricultural and industrial microbiology yielded fundamental discoveries in the field of

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

. His achievements have been perhaps unfairly overshadowed by those of his contemporaries,

Robert Koch Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( , ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera (though the Vibrio ...

and

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...

, 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. In 1885 he became a member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

Scientific career

He is considered one of the founders of

. In 1898, he published results on the filtration experiments demonstrating that

tobacco mosaic disease ''Tobacco mosaic virus'' (TMV) is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus species in the genus '' Tobamovirus'' that infects a wide range of plants, especially tobacco and other members of the family Solanaceae. The infection causes characte ...

is caused by an infectious agent smaller than a

bacterium Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

. His results were in accordance with the similar observation made by

Dmitri Ivanovsky Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky (alternative spelling ''Dmitrii'' or ''Dmitry Iwanowski''; russian: Дми́трий Ио́сифович Ивано́вский; 28 October 1864 – 20 June 1920) was a Russian botanist, the co-discoverer of :viruses ...

in 1892. Like Ivanovsky before him and

Adolf Mayer Adolf Eduard Mayer (9 August 184325 December 1942) was a German agricultural chemist whose work on tobacco mosaic disease played an important role in the discovery of tobacco mosaic virus and viruses in general. Mayer was born in 1843 into the ...

, predecessor at Wageningen, Beijerinck could not culture the filterable infectious agent; however, he concluded that the agent can replicate and multiply in living plants. He named the new

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

'' to indicate its non-bacterial nature. Beijerinck asserted that the virus was somewhat liquid in nature, calling it "''

''" (contagious living fluid). It was not until the first crystals of the

tobacco mosaic virus ''Tobacco mosaic virus'' (TMV) is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus species in the genus ''Tobamovirus'' that infects a wide range of plants, especially tobacco and other members of the family Solanaceae. The infection causes characteri ...

(TMV) obtained by

Wendell Stanley Wendell Meredith Stanley (16 August 1904 – 15 June 1971) was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate. Biography Stanley was born in Ridgeville, Indiana, and earned a BSc in Chemistry at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. ...

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.

Nitrogen fixation Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen (), with a strong triple covalent bond, in the air is converted into ammonia () or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. Atmo ...

, the process by which diatomic

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

gas is converted to

ammonium The ammonium cation is a positively-charged polyatomic ion with the chemical formula or . It is formed by the protonation of ammonia (). Ammonium is also a general name for positively charged or protonated substituted amines and quaternary a ...

ions and becomes available to plants, was also investigated by Beijerinck. Bacteria perform nitrogen fixation, dwelling inside

root nodules Root nodules are found on the roots of plants, primarily legumes, that form a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Under nitrogen-limiting conditions, capable plants form a symbiotic relationship with a host-specific strain of bacteria known a ...

of certain plants (

legume A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...

s). In addition to having discovered a biochemical reaction vital to

soil fertility Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality.

and

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, Beijerinck revealed this archetypical example of

symbiosis Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasit ...

between

plants Plants are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all curr ...

and

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

. Beijerinck discovered the phenomenon of bacterial sulfate reduction, a form of

anaerobic respiration Anaerobic respiration is respiration using electron acceptors other than molecular oxygen (O2). Although oxygen is not the final electron acceptor, the process still uses a respiratory electron transport chain. In aerobic organisms undergoing re ...

. He learned 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 A biogeochemical cycle (or more generally a cycle of matter) is the pathway by which a chemical substance cycles (is turned over or moves through) the biotic and the abiotic compartments of Earth. The biotic compartment is the biosphere and the ...

. ''Spirillum desulfuricans'', now known as '' Desulfovibrio desulfuricans'', the first known sulfate-reducing bacterium, was isolated and described by Beijerinck. Beijerinck invented the

enrichment culture Enrichment culture is the use of certain growth media to favor the growth of a particular microorganism over others, enriching a sample for the microorganism of interest. This is generally done by introducing nutrients or environmental conditions th ...

, a fundamental method of studying

microbe A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

s 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 Lourens Gerhard Marinus Baas Becking (4 January 1895 in Deventer – 6 January 1963 in Canberra, Australia) was a Dutch botanist and microbiologist. He is known for the Baas Becking hypothesis, which he originally formulated as ''"Everything is ...

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 Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...

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 Gorssel is a village in the municipality of Lochem, province of Gelderland, Netherlands. It is located about 9 km (5.6 mi) southeast of the city centre of Deventer, Overijssel. In 2015, it had a population of 4,043. The microbiologist and botanist ...

where he lived for the rest of his life, together with his two sisters.

Recognition

Beijerinckia Beijerinckia is a free living nitrogen-fixing aerobic microbe. It has abundant of nitrogenase enzyme capable of nitrogen reduction. ''Beijerinckia'' is a genus of bacteria from the family of Beijerinckiaceae The Beijerinckiaceae are a fami ...

(a genus of bacteria),

Beijerinckiaceae The Beijerinckiaceae are a family of Hyphomicrobiales named after the Dutch microbiologist Martinus Willem Beijerinck. ''Beijerinckia'' is a genus of free-living aerobic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Acidotolerant ''Beijerinckiaceae'' has been shown ...

(a family of

Hyphomicrobiales The ''Hyphomicrobiales'' are an order of Gram-negative Alphaproteobacteria. The rhizobia, which fix nitrogen and are symbiotic with plant roots, appear in several different families. The four families ''Nitrobacteraceae'', ''Hyphomicrobiaceae' ...

), and Beijerinck crater are named after him. The

M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize The M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize (''M.W. Beijerinck Virologie Prijs'') is a prize in virology awarded every two years by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, ''Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen'' (KNAW). The prize c ...

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

References

External links

*
Beijerinck and the Delft School of Microbiology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beijerinck, Martinus 1851 births 1931 deaths Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925) Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Delft University of Technology alumni Delft University of Technology faculty Dutch microbiologists 19th-century Dutch botanists 20th-century Dutch botanists Dutch phytopathologists Environmental microbiology Foreign Members of the Royal Society Honorary Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Leeuwenhoek Medal winners Leiden University alumni Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Nitrogen cycle Scientists from Amsterdam Dutch soil scientists Wageningen University and Research faculty