Julius Richard Petri was born on May 31, 1852 in Barmen. He studied medicine at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Academy for Military Physicians in Berlin. Later he worked at the Imperial Health Office with Robert Koch who is considered the father of modern bacteriology.. Till 1882, he served actively as a military physician.
Petri then invented the standard culture dish, or Petri plate, and further developed the technique of agar culture to purify or clone bacterial colonies derived from single cells. This advance made it possible to rigorously identify the bacteria responsible for diseases.
Today’s Google doodle features six animated petri dishes which are swabbed by a hand. Images of bacteria grow and spread in the dishes.