My contribution, as a microbiologist, to the terminological evolution of living beings is in the field of bacteria. This was done during my post-doctoral stay in the laboratory of Dr. Johan F. De Jonckheere at the Institut d’Hygi\u00e8ne et d’\u00c9pid\u00e9miologie (IHE) in Brussels, later called Institut Scientifique de la Sante Publique and more recently Sciensano, the new Belgian national institute of public health. As an international expert in the study of protists (amoeba, in particular) in a free state, Dr. De Jonckheere had the necessary technology to advance the taxonomic study of the purple photosynthetic bacteria of the genus Chromatium <\/em>that had been partial protagonists of my doctoral thesis at the University of Barcelona. <\/p>\n\n El resultat d\u2019aquesta estada va ser la constataci\u00f3 que dues esp\u00e8cies considerades diferents fins aleshores Chromatium vinosum<\/em> i Chromatium minutissimum<\/em> eren pr\u00e0cticament la mateixa. Aix\u00ed ho revelaven els estudis de riboprinting<\/em> fets a l\u2019IHE i publicats a la revista International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology<\/em> (Mas-Castella, J., Guerrero, R., De Jonckheere, J.F. 1996. High degree of similarity between Chromatium vinosum<\/em> and Chromatium minutissimum<\/em> as revealed by riboprinting. Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 46, 922\u2013925.) <\/p>\n Years later, studies by research groups of international experts such as Rodney A. Herbert, Rudolf Amann and Ulrich Fischer (W. Serrano et al. 2011. Systematic and Applied Microbiology<\/em> 34, 590\u2013 594) confirmed, using other technologies, the close relationship between these species. They say in their work: “Thus, the low nucleotide diversity observed within the A. vinosum<\/em> phylogroup, reinforced the close relationship of all these strains. Based on this data, the status of the species A. vinosum<\/em> DSM 180T and A. minutissimum<\/em> DSM 1376T as separate entities must be revised. Both type strains are similar in very many features as was reported by Mas-Castella et al. [1996] and Pavon and Gaju [1997]. In addition, our findings were also supported by the fact that the DDH relatedness within this group showed values >80% plausible for a single genospecies”. <\/p>\n\n I think that if we are able to understand that the name that identifies a species in the present day can change for different reasons, we will be able to advance in the public’s understanding of science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientific knowledge is constantly evolving. Reality may change, but the techniques and methodologies we have at our disposal to analyze it, study it and learn about it in more detail and depth change faster. This does not mean that the scientific body of knowledge is unstable and can generate doubts; simply that every day we … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[65,68,66],"class_list":["post-1855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microbiology","tag-microbiology","tag-postdoc-en","tag-scientific-terminology","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1856,"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1855\/revisions\/1856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jordimas.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/scrennshot_art_chromatium.jpg\")
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