| Abstract | Man had unwittingly made use of microbial chemistry long before Pasteur fist recognized the chemical activities of microorganisms. Since then, over a century of progress has amassed information from which it is evident that microbes in reproducing their kind serve as highly efficient chemical machines, and are potentially chemical factories, capable of almost limitless syntheses.
Until 1950, all this information had been obtained from microbial cultures grown by the classical technique of batch cultures. This method is now known to have certain limitations, in the light of progress made during the past 15 years in developing new methods for cultivating microorganisms. These new techniques enable microbiologists to study the cell rather than the overall population, to that the activities of the individual micribial unit can now, at last, be examined and appreciated.
As a result of this closer look at the microbe, a clearer picture of cell growth and metabolism is emerging, and thus a better understanding of the cell machinery becomes possible. Not only is basic and applied research in microbiology, biochemistry and cell physiology intimately concerned with these advances but also chemistry and engineering too, as these will be involved in any subsequent exploitation of the cell.
The accompanying article outlines the new methods for growing microorganisms and discusses their potential in future applications. |
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