...INTRODUCTION Microorganisms are used extensively to provide a vast range of products and services. They have proved to be particularly useful because of the ease of their mass cultivation, speed of growth, use of cheap substrates (which in many cases are wastes) and the diversity of potential products. Their ability to readily undergo genetic manipulation has also opened up almost limitless further possibilities for new products and services from the fermentation industries (Trevor Palmor, 2004). Microorganisms are a large and disease group that exist as its single cell or cell cultures. These include bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa and infectious agents at the borderline of life. Microbes are present most abundantly in soil, atmosphere and water plays a important role in the biochemical agent for the conversion of complex organic compounds into simple organic compounds (Glazer and Nikaido, 1995). Microorganisms are closely associated with health and welfare of human beings. Some Microorganisms are beneficial and others are detrimental. For example, Microorganisms are involved in the making of yoghurt, cheese and wine, in the production of Penicillin, interferons and alcohol, and the processing of industrial and domestic wastes. Microorganisms can cause disease, spoil food and deteriorate materials like iron, pipes, glass lenses and wood pilings (Glazer and Nikaido, 1995). Most of these Microorganisms irrespective of their origins, were subsequently modified by conventional...
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...are considered, but economic aspects are also briefly addressed. INTRODUCTION: Food processing through the use of biological agents is historically a well-established approach. The earliest applications go back to 6,000 BC or earlier, with the brewing of beer, bread baking, and cheese and wine making, whereas the first purposeful microbial oxidation dates from 2,000 BC, with vinegar production. Coming to modern days, in the late XIX, century Christian Hansen reported the use of rennet (a mixture of chymosin and pepsin) for cheese making, and production of bacterial amylases was started at Takamine (latter to become part of Genencor). Pectinases were used for juice clarification in the 1930s, and for a short period during World War II, invertase was also used for the production of invert sugar syrup in a process that...
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