Microbial Factories

Synopsis

This CD-ROM provides an introduction to industrial microbiology. It consists of three parts. The first part is a tutorial that covers microbial growth and explains the mathematical equations that describe growth. It enables students to plot their own standard growth curve for microbes in culture, and to see how optical density readings can be matched with viable counts, i.e. the number of microbes in a culture that can give rise to colonies under a particular set of growth conditions (this value is not necessarily all the microbes present). The second and third parts of the CD-ROM look at real examples of industrial-scale culture to produce products of commercial value. The first example is the production of the antibiotic streptomycin by the actinomycete, Streptomyces griseus. The second is the production of citric acid by the fungus, Aspergillus niger. Fungi grow as hyphae rather than single-celled organisms, and you might expect their growth characteristics in culture to differ from those of bacteria. There are indeed differences, but they are generally fairly minor and they are ignored here. In these sections, students are asked to find the optimum conditions for product yield (not necessarily the same as the optimum growth conditions), and to make decisions about the best way to run the process. These exercises will give an insight into what industrial microbiologists do.

Series

Biology: Uniformity & Diversity Course

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2004

Year of production

2003

Subjects

Biology

Keywords

applied research; culturing techniques; microbiology; industrial microbiology

Distribution Formats

Type

CD-ROM

Format

PC Version

Price

£29.99

Year

2005

Production Company

Name

Open University

Distributor

Name

Open University Worldwide

Web

http://www.ouw.co.uk External site opens in new window

Phone

+44 (0) 1908 274066

Address

Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA

Notes

NB. As of May 2016 Open University Worldwide are no longer distributing DVDs. They have posted this message on their website: ‘Unfortunately Open University Worldwide Limited has decided that product sales are no longer viable given the reduced funding to Higher Education institutions and diminishing demand for the products we have traditionally stocked. At present the Open University Students Association (OUSA) will continue to sell the "Good Study Guide", and we are in discussion with other possible distributors to continue to make The Open University’s products available for purchase. As soon as we have any information on other channels of distribution we will update this notice’. Some products are still available via second hand dealers on Amazon.co.uk