A branch of medical science involved with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases is known as medical microbiology, a sizable subset of microbiology that is applied to medicine. Additionally, this branch of science investigates numerous clinical uses of microorganisms for enhancing health. Bacteria, fungi, parasites, viruses, and one particular infectious protein known as a prion are the four types of microorganisms that cause infectious disease. Although the clinical aspect of the field primarily focuses on the presence and growth of microbial infections in individuals, their effects on the human body, and the methods of treating those infections, epidemiology, the study of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in populations, is a significant component of medical microbiology. Although there is a fluid continuum between public health microbiology and clinical microbiology in reality, the entire field can be conceptually divided into academic and clinical sub-specialties in this regard as an applied science, just as the state of the art in clinical laboratories depends on ongoing advancements in academic medicine and research laboratories.