Industrial microbiology defined as the study of the large-scale and profit motivated production of microorganisms or their products for direct use, or as inputs in the manufacture of other goods.

1. Scope of Industrial
Microbiology and Biotechnology
Dr. Pavan J Kundur
M.Sc., Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor
Department of Biotechnology and Microbiology
P C Jabin Science College,
Hubballi, Karnataka, India

2. NATURE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY AND
INDUSTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY
•“Any technological application that uses biological
systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to
make or modify products or processes for specific
use.”
•use of microorganisms to make the antibiotic,
penicillin or the dairy product, yoghurt; the use of
microorganisms to produce amino acids or enzymes
are also examples of biotechnology.

3. •Industrial microbiology may be defined as the study of
the large-scale and profit-motivated production of
microorganisms or their products for direct use, or as
inputs in the manufacture of other goods.
•Thus yeasts may be produced for direct consumption as
food for humans or as animal feed, or for use in bread-
making; their product, ethanol, may also be consumed
in the form of alcoholic beverages, or used in the
manufacture of perfumes, pharmaceuticals, etc.
•Industrial microbiology is clearly a branch of
biotechnology and includes the traditional and nucleic
acid aspects.

4. CHARACTERISTICS OF INDUSTRIAL
MICROBIOLOGY
• The discipline of microbiology is often divided into sub-disciplines such as
• medical microbiology,
• environmental microbiology,
• food microbiology and
• industrial microbiology.
• The characteristics of industrial microbiology can be highlighted by comparing
its features with those of another sub-division of microbiology, medical
microbiology.

5. Industrial vs Medical Microbiology
•They differ in at least three different ways:
First is the immediate motivation:
•In industrial microbiology the immediate motivation is
profit and the generation of wealth.
•In medical microbiology, the immediate concern is to
offer expert opinion to the doctor about, for example the
spectrum of antibiotic susceptibility of the
microorganisms isolated from a diseased condition so as
to restore the patient back to good health.
•The generation of wealth is of course at the back of the
mind of the medical microbiologist.

6. The second difference is:
•That the microorganisms per se used in routine
medical microbiology have little or no direct economic
value, outside the contribution which they make to
ensuring the return to good health of the patient who
may then pay for the services.
•In industrial microbiology the microorganisms
involved or their products are very valuable.

7. The third difference is the scale at which the
microorganisms are handled.
•In industrial microbiology, the scale is large and the
organisms may be cultivated in fermentors as large
as 50,000 liters or larger.
•In routine medical microbiology the scale at which the
pathogen is handled is limited to a loopful or a few
milliliters.

8. •If a pathogen which normally would have no economic
value were to be handled on the large scale used in
industrial microbiology, it would most probably be to
prepare a vaccine against the pathogen.
•Under that condition, the pathogen would then acquire
an economic value and a profit-making potential; the
operation would properly be termed industrial
microbiology.

9. Multi-disciplinary or Team-work Nature of
Industrial Microbiology
•The microbiologist in an industrial establishment does
not function by himself.
•In a modern industrial microbiology organization these
others may include chemical or production engineers,
biochemists, economists, lawyers, marketing experts,
and other high-level functionaries.
•They all cooperate to achieve the purpose of the firm,
which is not philanthropy, (at least not immediately) but
the generation of profit or wealth.

10. •Despite the necessity for team work emphasized above,
the microbiologist or biotechnologist has a central and
key role in his organization.
•Some of his functions include:
a. the selection of the organism to be used in the
processes;
b. the choice of the medium of growth of the organism;
c. the determination of the environmental conditions for
the organism’s optimum productivity i.e., pH,
temperature, aeration, etc.

11. d. during the actual production the microbiologist or
biotechnologist must monitor the process for the
absence of contaminants, and participate in quality
control to ensure uniformity of quality in the
products;
e. the proper custody of the organisms usually in a
culture collection, so that their desirable properties
are retained;
f. the improvement of the performance of the
microorganisms by genetic manipulation or by
medium reconstitution.

12. Free Communication of Procedures in
Industrial Microbiology
•Many procedures employed in industrial microbiology
do not become public property for a long time
because the companies which discover them either
keep them secret, or else patent them.
•The undisclosed methods are usually blandly
described as ‘know-how’.
•The reason for the secrecy is obvious and is designed
to keep the owner of the secret one step ahead of
his/her competitors.
•For this reason, industrial microbiology textbooks
often lag behind in describing methods employed in
industry.

13. PATENTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IN
INDUSTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
•All over the world, governments set up patent or
intellectual property laws, which have two aims.
•First, they are intended to induce an inventor to disclose
something of his/her invention.
•Second, patents ensure that an invention is not exploited
without some reward to the inventor for his/her
innovation; anyone wishing to use a patented invention
would have to pay the patentee for its use.

14. THE USE OF THE WORD ‘FERMENTATION’ IN
INDUSTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY
•The word fermentation comes from the Latin verb
fevere, which means to boil.
•It originated from the fact that early at the start of
wine fermentation gas bubbles are released
continuously to the surface giving the impression of
boiling.

15. The 1st usage of the word is in industrial microbiology,
where the term ‘fermentation’ is any process in which
micro-organisms are grown on a large scale, even if
the final electron acceptor is not an organic
compound (i.e. even if the growth is carried out under
aerobic conditions).
•Thus, the production of penicillin, and the growth of
yeast cells which are both highly aerobic, and the
production of ethanol or alcoholic beverages which
are fermentations in the physiological sense, are all
referred to as fermentations.

16. The 2nd usage concerns food.
•A fermented food is one, the processing of which
microorganisms play a major part.
•Microorganisms determine the nature of the food
through producing the flavor components as well
deciding the general character of the food, but
microorganisms form only a small portion of the
finished product by weight.
•Foods such as cheese, bread, and yoghurt are
fermented foods.

17. ORGANIZATIONAL SET-UP IN AN INDUSTRIAL
MICROBIOLOGY ESTABLISHMENT
•The organization of a fermentation industrial
establishment will vary from one firm to another and
will depend on what is being produced.
•Nevertheless the diagram in Fig. 1.1 represents in
general terms the set-up in a fermentation industry.

19. Quality Control-
Microbiology
Biocon Limited
Bengaluru, Karnataka
Apply on Monster India
Full–time
Experience: 1 - 5 years Skills: QC Microbiologist, Quality Control-Analyst Industry:
Pharmaceutical Functional Area: Pharmaceutical/ Biotechnology
• Maintenance of standard cultures.
• Trend analysis.
• Analysis of Bio-burden for samples from mammalian and fill finish facility.
• Assessing production personnel for gowning qualification.
• Checking pH /Conductivity/TOC of different samples.
• Process and cleaning validation.
• To Prepare trend of Water and Environment monitoring.
• Review and release Microbiological parameters of batches.
• To take corrective and preventive action on Environmental Monitoring Reports.
• To carry out sample analysis for testing of Allergens.
• Contributing to the organizational goal of best practice in the safety, health and
environment management system to Minimize the risk, injury even near miss.

20. Thank You