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Koch

[ koch kawkh ]

noun

  1. Edward I., 1924–2013, U.S. politician: mayor of New York City 1977–89.
  2. Ro·bert [roh, -be, r, t], 1843–1910, German bacteriologist and physician: Nobel Prize 1905.


Koch

/ kɔx /

noun

  1. KochRobert18431910MGermanSCIENCE: bacteriologist Robert (ˈroːbɛrt). 1843–1910, German bacteriologist, who isolated the anthrax bacillus (1876), the tubercle bacillus (1882), and the cholera bacillus (1883): Nobel prize for physiology or medicine 1905


Koch

/ kôk /

  1. German bacteriologist who demonstrated that specific diseases are caused by specific microorganisms. He identified the bacilli that cause anthrax, tuberculosis, and cholera, and he showed that fleas and rats are responsible for transmission of the bubonic plague and that the tsetse fly is responsible for transmitting sleeping sickness. Koch won the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1905.


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Biography

Robert Koch is deservedly famous for his discovery of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and many other diseases, and his illumination of the life cycle of the anthrax bacillus in 1876 showed how a particular microorganism caused a particular disease, definitively establishing the modern germ theory of disease. What Koch is less well-known for is his equally important and pioneering work in laboratory methods, especially in culture techniques and microscopy. Some attempts before Koch had already been made to grow microorganisms outside the body, but it was he who, through ingenious experiments, devised cheap, reliable, and duplicable techniques for growing pure cultures of single species of bacteria in the lab. Except for the lid, he invented the petri dish and a jellylike culture medium for it (the lid was later added by one of his assistants, Julius Petri). For years a passionate amateur photographer, Koch soon applied that interest to his lab work: he devised methods for preparing and culturing bacteria in thin layers on glass slides so that they could be photographed under a microscope. He invented ways of staining bacterial cultures to make poorly visible bacteria stand out under magnification. All of these innovations allowed the life cycles of bacteria to be studied and documented for the first time—an advance that bore its first and perhaps most dramatic fruit in Koch's demonstration of the life cycle of the anthrax bacillus, which was accompanied by dramatic photographs that took the scientific world by storm.

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Example Sentences

Americans for Prosperity, backed by the billionaire Koch family, has 200 paid staffers and hundreds more activists from its Georgia chapter knocking on doors.

From Ozy

Koch calls them the “world’s most powerful consumer,” and believes the group will become “increasingly dominant” in the marketplace over the next 10 years.

From Fortune

Koch and his brother were also largely involved in shaping the country’s response to climate change.

From Fortune

Politico describes Americans for Prosperity as the “Koch brothers’ main political arm.”

The Koch snowflake, and other curves like it, cannot be analyzed using calculus and related methods, a fact that makes them especially hard to study.

No matter how much money the Koch brothers or Tom Steyer spend, they cannot convince a lottery to choose one person over another.

If Republicans win big, Democrats will hang their heads and cuss the Koch brothers.

That happened under massive public pressure, led by the late New York City mayor Ed Koch, in the run-up to 2012.

Like the Koch Brothers, it seemed Rastetter wanted to be a GOP kingmaker.

But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group.

The usual cause of acute infectious conjunctivitis, especially in cities, seems to be the Koch-Weeks bacillus.

Koch points out that per-e is here dissyllabic; as in the Compleint to His Purse, l. 11.

Melodye or glee; here Koch remarks that Chaucer 'evidently mistook tirelire for turelure.'

Koch notes that the reading depriued arose from its substitution for the less familiar form priued.

Koch reads 'Dreygh eek' for 'And eek,' in l. 163, where 'Dreygh' means 'endured.'

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