Five thousand to ten thousand people died each year in the U. as a result of a strand of bacteria there was no vaccination for. This strand of bacteria was Bordetella pertussis. Now there are less then twenty fatalities are a year from Bordetella pertussis, whooping cough. Fifty percent of all Bordetella pertussis infections are found in children less than a year old. The older a person gets the less susceptible they are to an infection of Bordetella pertussis.

             The founder and director of the Pasteur Institute of Brabant, Jules Bordet, is the bacteriologist that we can thank for discovering Bordetella pertussis. One of Bordet"s studies at the institute was serology; the study of immune reactions in body fluids, which helped him win a Nobel Prize for his discovery of immunity, factors in blood serum. Through the research on immunity with Octave Gengou Bordet discovered Bordetella pertussis in 1906. Soon after his discovery, Bordet became a professor of bacteriology at the University of Brussels.

             Bordetella pertussis is a differential bacterium with specific colony morphology. On the agar plate the colonies appear small, condensed, and glistening. Bordetella is a Gram-negative aerobic coccobacillus that may appear in pairs or individually. Through a respiratory and taxonomic process Bordetella pertussis metabolizes, but never through fermentation. Even though Bordetella pertussis is not assigned to a specific family, Bergey"s Manual groups it with "Gram-negative Aerobic Rods and Cocci." Cultivated on rich media, supplemented with blood Bordetella pertussis is nutritionally fastidious. Synthetic mediums, containing buffer, salts, an amino acids energy source, and growth factors can also be used to grow Bordetella pertussis. The bacteria grows slowly though, even on a blood agar the growth period takes three to six days to form pinpoint colonies. Through recent studies colonies of Bordetella pertussis have been found in alveolar macrophages, but are localized to the respiratory tract since it does not invade tissues.