“The specimen is never wrong”: the pathologist behind Wolbachia

Wolbachia are obligate intracellular bacteria that infect a wide range of arthropods and some filarial nematodes.The genus is named after Simeon Burt Wolbach, an American pathologist who first observed these microorganisms in mosquitoes in the 1920s in collaboration with the entomologist Marshall Hertig.While Wolbach himself did not pursue them further, the bacteria bearing his name have become one of the most widely studied endosymbionts, shaping basic biology as well as applied vector control and anti-filarial strategies.