The review presents the origins of the study of microbiology at the Saratov State University, the formation and development from the establishment of the Department of Microbiology at Saratov University in 1918 under the leadership of Alexei Ilyich Berdnikov to the educational and scientifi c-practical activities of the Department of Microbiology and Plant Physiology at the present time. The history of the department is closely connected with the activities of outstanding microbiologists Alexander Alexandrovich Bogomolets, Sergey Mikhailovich Nikanorov, the fi rst head of the Department of Microbiology of the Faculty of Biology of SSU – Albert Reingoldovich Werner, heads of the Department Maria Petrovna Gnutenko, Marina Konstantinovna Shcheglova, Pavel Abramovich Chirov, who formed the main directions of scientifi c research. Pages of the history of our country were refl ected in the life of the staff of the department: the repressions of the 1930s, the deportation of the Volga Germans in 1941, the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. In 1955 The Department of Microbiology is combined with the Department of Plant Anatomy and Physiology. The department has become the cradle of scientifi c and educational departments of Saratov institutions – the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics of SSU, the Department of Microbiology of SSMU, the Federal State Institution of the Russian Anti-Plague Institute “Microbe” of Rospotrebnadzor. Currently, scientifi c and pedagogical activities of the Department of Microbiology and Plant Physiology of the SSU N. G. Chernyshevsky is provided by the head of the department Sergey Alexandrovich Stepanov, doсents Alexandra Mikhailovna Peterson, Elena Vladimirovna Glinskaya, Denis Valeryevich Utkin, Valeria Valeryevna Korobko, Mikhail Yuryevich Kasatkin.