Advances in Bioprocess Technology

Bioprocess technology is based on the principle engineering of biochemical processes on a technical scale. It involves the usage of biological entities like bacteria, algae etc., or their components (eg. enzymes) to carry out a specific process for commercial, therapeutic or scientific reasons.

With the advent of civilization, bioprocesses have been used to produce fermented foods and alcoholic beverages through fermentation. Modern bioprocess deals with the design and development of equipment and processes for the manufacturing of products such as food and agricultural, pharmaceutical, functional foods, chemicals, fuel from biological materials and the treatment of waste water effluents.

Microorganisms have the ability to adopt their cells in the presence of any particular element in a medium over a period of time. Bioprocesses include several different units to provide a near optimal environment which is desired for the growth and multiplication of the microorganisms, and produce a desired product. The bioprocess production has two fundamental units (1) Upstream processing (2) Downstream processing. Upstream process is defined as the growth of microorganism on a desired substrate required to produce metabolic products involving a series of procedures like cell line selection, culture media, growth parameters, and process optimization. Downstream processing includes further steps required to purify a biological product from cell culture broth to purified final product for end use.A current expansion of molecular biology is crucial to world-wide interest in biotechnology. Scientific breakthroughs in gene expression, protein engineering and automated technologies have rendered strength to biotechnology industry to produce innovative products and services that will improve the quality of human life. Even pharmaceuticals are changing their ways from traditional chemical synthesis to biologics (bio manufacturing). Global energy and environmental problems have also stimulated researchers to develop methods which aim towards using lesser energy and maximum output. The breakthrough in the manufacturing platform for bio-products is expected to significantly reduce the time from the lab to the production, and also increases the production of diverse products in large volume, at reduced cost with acceptable purity.

The chapter will collect a summarybased on literature in peer-reviewed journals and on companies own publications available on the Internet. It will review details of a few of the key advances and emerging trends in the bioprocessing industry which have greater adoption and potential.