Exam prep · Free college course
A complete intro college microbiology course covering all 26 chapters of OpenStax Microbiology. It opens with the foundations (the history of microbiology, microscope types and the staining techniques that identify a microbe before anything else is known about it), then the microbial cell itself (the prokaryotic cell wall and the Gram difference, endospores, appendages) before surveying prokaryotic diversity, eukaryotic microbes, and the acellular pathogens (viruses, viroids, prions). The middle third covers microbial biochemistry, metabolism, growth and culture (with worked CFU-from-serial-dilution and generation-time math), genetics (DNA replication, transcription and translation, horizontal gene transfer) and its applications, then how microbial growth is controlled and how antimicrobial drugs work by mechanism class. The final third is clinical: mechanisms of pathogenicity, disease and epidemiology (with worked incidence and mortality-rate math), innate and adaptive immunity, immune disorders and lab testing, and a closing unit walking through infectious diseases system by system (skin and eye, respiratory, urogenital, digestive, circulatory and lymphatic, nervous), each disease carrying its causative agent, transmission route, and diagnosis or treatment. No images: every stain result, structure and process is described fully in words. Cards are text only.
Copied straight from the course. In the app, each wrong option also gets its own explanation.
Card 1After a completed Gram stain, what color do gram-negative bacteria appear?
Pink. Gram-negative cells lose the crystal violet-iodine complex during decolorization and pick up the pink/red safranin counterstain.
Card 2During which growth curve phase does population size increase exponentially with a constant growth rate?
Log (exponential) phase. Log phase is defined by constant, exponential population increase as cells actively divide by binary fission.
Card 3An infant develops widespread erythema followed by severe skin peeling that resembles a burn. What causes this presentation?
Exfoliative exotoxins produced by certain Staphylococcus aureus strains. Staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome results from exfoliative-toxin-producing S. aureus strains, mainly in young children and infants.
Yes. Create a free Encodr account and all 18 units and 1,341 cards are yours to study, with spaced repetition scheduling your reviews.
General biology literacy helps (cells, DNA, basic biochemistry), but every microbiology-specific term is taught from scratch, in the order it is first used.
A modest amount, concentrated in a few chapters: CFU-from-serial-dilution and generation-time calculations, ATP-yield tallies, a phenol-coefficient worked example, MIC via twofold dilution, and incidence/mortality rate math. Every numeric card states its rounding rule and was independently recomputed before publishing.
Yes - the final unit walks through skin and eye, respiratory, urogenital, digestive, circulatory and lymphatic, and nervous system infections, with the causative agent, transmission route, and diagnosis or treatment for each named disease.
No. Every stain result, cell structure and process (Gram stain outcomes, the lytic cycle, the growth curve, antibody classes) is described fully in words instead.
OpenStax Microbiology (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), all 26 chapters. The cards are rewritten in plain language, not copied from the source text.