The rapid growth in biotechnology in recent years has led to an upsurge in interest in microbial technology amongst many biochemists, molecular biologists, geneticists, virologists, endocrinologists, and clinicians. Their objectives may be very diverse, ranging from the isolation of a stable enzyme from a hyperthermophile to the expression of a human protein by a recombinant yeasts or bacterium. Advance in microbial physiology have made possible a rational approach to optimization of product yield based on analysis of cultures, growth kinetics, and biochemical pathways. The application of statistical optimization methods, widely used in other fields, also has much to offer microbiology and biotechnology. The choice of material for this book has been influenced by both the need for practical information to enable to the isolation, handling, and culture of organisms and the necessity to generate and analyse data enabling the development of a process. It therefore contains chapters covering the 'husbandry' of microbiology, the generation of data by chemical and physical analysis, and the interpretation of such data. Data interpretation is considered from two points of view. Kinetic analyses of growth and product formation have frequently illuminated the development of fermentation processes. More recently, the analysis of the flux of metabolites through intermediate biochemical pathways has shown up important factors in metabolic engineering through the application of molecular biology techniques in microbial physiology. Applied Microbial Culture: A Practical Approach 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.

Author Biography

Dr P. Malcolm Rhodes, Bioscot Ltd, King's Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JF. Tel: 0131 662 4551. Fax: 0131 662 4279. Dr Peter Stanbury, Dept of Biosciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield Campus, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AD