Applied Microbial Physiology: A Practical Approach

In recent years, the rapid growth in biotechnology has led to an upsurge in interest in microbial technology among biochemists, molecular biologists, geneticists, virologists, endocrinologists, and clinicians. Advances in microbial physiology have helped scientists realize a rational approach to optimization of product yield based on analysis of cultures, growth kinetics, and biochemical pathways; its applications also extend to microbiology and biotechnology. This book arises from both the need for practical information to enable the isolation, handling, and culture of organisms, and the necessity to generate and analyze data enabling the development of the process. Chapters cover the "husbandry" of microbiology, the generation of data by chemical and physical analysis, and the interpretation of such data. This is considered from two points of view. On one hand, kinetic analyses of growth and product formation have frequently illuminated the development of fermentation processes. More recently, though, the analysis of the flux of metabolites through intermediate biochemical pathways has shown up important facts in metabolic engineering through the application of molecular biology techniques in microbial physiology. This is a useful resource and guide to the successful culture of microorganisms in pure form, optimizing the culture conditions and the scaling-up process to enable more detailed study.