A cinematic view of tissue microbiology in the live infected host

With each big scientific advancement, plaudits are quickly heaped on the scientists producing these great results as well as recognizing those that came before. Emerging technologies and technological advancements, often crucial to these ground-breaking discoveries, are often overlooked as merely being tools. Each big step forward in our understanding of host-pathogen interaction has been enabled in some way by advancements in technology. These advancements have allowed scientists to look at their problems in a new light, given us more detailed read-outs, or pushed us further toward the clinical environment. Microscopy is a clear example of these types of advancements. The development of the first primitive microscope in the 1670s allowed Antoine van Leeuwenhoek to describe the “animalcules” he saw, which were, in fact, bacteria being visualized for the first time using light-based microscopy (1, 2).