Example of Penicillin Production

The production of penicillin represents one of the most remarkable examples of the successful scale-up of a laboratory-scale cultivation of a microorganism into a profitable industrial-scale process. 

Between 1941 and 1945, U.S. production of penicillin rose from virtually nothing to more than 650 billion units per month, whereas its cost dropped from 20 per 100,000 units to roughly 60 cents (Sturchio, 1988).6 The yield of penicillin was also increased about a thousand times, which was due to the following (Pelczar and Reid, 1972)  

Improvements in composition of the medium - corn steep liquor as a growth promoter, substitution of lactose for glucose, and addition of phenylacetic acid. 

6 One unit is equivalent to about 0.6 /tg of the international standard for active penicillin 

The production of mutant strains of Penicillium chrysognum by X-ray and ultraviolet radiation. 

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