Microbial Strategies

Microbial Strategies

• Nobody likes to get sick, least of all me…

• Running a high fever makes us feel terrible

• What’s the first thing you usually do when you start to feel sick and feverish?

• You take a pill to bring down the fever

• But what if that fever could save your life…

• In our last lecture, we learned about the evolutionary arms race, the high-stakes competition between ourselves and our microbial foes

• In this lecture, we’ll explore the many strategies, like fever, that both sides have evolved to attack or defend

• One of the most important microbial strategies is one of the easiest to overlook – their innate ability to make a lot more of themselves in a very short period of time

• Microbes like bacteria have an absolutely astounding potential for growth