The English bacteriologist Frederick Twort (1877 - 1950) was the co-discoverer of bacteriophages, the viruses that use bacteria as hosts. He made useful discoveries in the field of cultivating bacteria, fighting infectious diseases, mutations, and of course viruses and bacteriophages. Many of his discoveries and publications were sadly ignored in his own time.
The English bacteriologist Frederick Twort (1877 - 1950) was the co-discoverer of bacteriophages, the viruses that use bacteria as hosts. He made useful discoveries in the field of cultivating bacteria, fighting infectious diseases, mutations, and of course viruses and bacteriophages. Many of his discoveries and publications were sadly ignored in his own time.
Mutants
Frederick Twort was an Englishman who graduated from medical school in 1900 and spent most of his career at the pathology institute Brown Animal Sanatory Institution. In the early years of his working life, Twort mainly published about classifying microbes based on which sugars they consume. He discovered that this was not as black and white as previously thought. Bacteria in culture can adapt and suddenly digest certain sugars that they could not digest before. In essence, he published about mutation and adaptation in microbiology, but this was ignored for a long time.
Essential element
He had a keen insight into the connections between certain microbes and their relationship with nutrients. Leprosy, caused by Mycobacterium species, was a major problem in its day. However, these microbes could not be cultivated. Twort discovered that if dead cells from other bacteria were mixed in the culture medium, they could be successfully cultivated. Later it turned out that vitamin K was missing. The value of this work was not recognized until years later.
'Bacteriolytic' bubbles
Twort was trying for some time to grow viruses in artificial food sources, for example to grow the smallpox virus for a better vaccine. In 1915 he published his most important work, in which he spoke of "bacteriolytic" (literally: bacteria-killing) substances. Twort himself previously thought that enzymes were killing bacteria, and not bacteriophages as it turned out. Two years later, but independent from Twort, the French-Canadian microbiologist Félix d’Hérelle also published about bacteriophages. Twort and d'Hérelle are often mentioned together as discoverers of bacteriophages.