Isolation (microbiology)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Isolation" microbiology – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In microbiology, the term isolation refers to the separation of a strain from a natural, mixed population of living microbes, as present in the environment, for example in water or soil, or from living beings with skin flora, oral flora or gut flora, in order to identify the microbe(s) of interest.^[1] Historically, the laboratory techniques of isolation first developed in the field of bacteriology and parasitology (during the 19th century), before those in virology during the 20th century.