Nicole Gentile, PhD Candidate, provides an overview of basic microbiology and the concepts involved, including the bacterial growth curve and classifying organisms based on morphologies. This lecture describes blood, urine and skin/soft tissue cultures, focusing on the types of media, sample collection processes, culture procedures, as well as speciation and susceptibility testing. Basic staining procedures, such as the simple stain, gram stain, spore stain, negative stain, and acid fast stain are briefly discussed. Included in the staining procedure descriptions are explanations of the organisms that the stains identify. In addition to staining procedures, biochemical tests used for differentiating bacteria are covered. Concluding the lecture are some facts about fungi and viruses, focusing on the current 2009 novel H1N1 influenza pandemic.