Essential Microbiology

I would like to thank those colleagues who took the time to read over individual chapters of this book, and those who reviewed the entire manuscript. Their comments have been gratefully received, and in some cases spared me from the embarrassment of seeing my mistakes perpetuated in print. Thanks are also due to my editorial team at John Wiley, Rachael Ballard and Andy Slade, and production editor Robert Hambrook for ensuring smooth production of this book.

I am grateful to those publishers and individuals who have granted permission to reproduce diagrams. Every effort has been made to trace holders of copyright; any inadvertent omissions will gladly be rectified in any future editions of this book. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family for allowing me to devote so many weekends to ‘the book’.