Pharmaceuticals, industrial fermentation

GOD is a glycoprotein containing two fiavine adenine dinucleotide FAD molecules as redox centers. The great interest in this enzyme can be explained by (i) its chemical resistance to acid media and denaturing agents such as urea and sodium dodecylsulfate [23], (ii) its commercial availability at a low price, and (iii) the extent of applications of glucose sensors in clinical analysis (diabetics control) and the food and pharmaceutical industries (fermentation control). 

Bioprocess plants are an essential part of food, fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Use of microorganisms to transform biological materials for production of fermented foods, cheese and chemicals has its antiquity. Bioprocesses have been developed for an enoimous range of commercial products, as listed in Table 1.1. Most of the products originate from relatively cheap raw materials. Production of industrial alcohols and organic solvents is mostly originated from cheap feed stocks. The more expensive and special bioprocesses are in the production of antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Industrial enzymes and living cells such as baker s yeast and brewer s yeast are also commercial products obtained from bioprocess plants. 

Nereus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Department of Microbiology and Industrial Fermentation, San Diego, CA 92121, USA... 

Bulk pharmaceuticals are manufactured using a variety of processes including chemical synthesis, fermentation, extraction, and other complex methods. Moreover, the pharmaceutical industry produces many products using different kinds of raw material as well as processes ... 

A primary sedimentation tank has been designed for the pretreatment of 0.312 MOD of fermentation waste generated from the pharmaceutical industry. The raw waste SS concentration is 1660 mg/L. At a detention time of 2 hours the effluent SS concentration is reduced to 260 mg/L. Determine (i) the SS removal efficiency of the sedimentation tank and (ii) the quantity of sludge generated per day. Assume the specific gravity of sludge (5si) is 1.03, which contains 6% solids. 

Most operations scaled up in the pharmaceutical industry use semibatch (and batch) processing in the general-purpose equipment. Such operations allow for fine control of slow unit operations, for example, reactions needing hours to complete, fermentation, and crystallization, and such fine control may be necessary to ensure high quality and productivity. 

Why devote so much space to the discovery of penicillin Simply because penicillin was the first NP to be made in massive amounts in factory scale fermentations, because of its remarkable biomolecular properties. This showed, for the first time, that microbi-ally produced NPs were economically accessible to large populations of humans and that chemists had no monopoly on synthetic methods for the pharmaceutical industry. The story also tells us that a worldwide search for cultures best suited to making penicillin showed that it is the rare organism that makes antibiotics in large amounts, a conclusion confirmed by the next part of the story of antibiotics. 

The development of hybridoma technology by Milstein and Kohler in 1975 revolutionized the antibody field and radically increased the purity and specificity of antibodies used in the clinic and for diagnostic tests in the laboratory. Hybridomas consist of antibody-forming cells fused to immortal plasmacytoma cells. Hybrid cells that are stable and produce the required antibody can be subcloned for mass culture for antibody production. Large-scale fermentation facilities are now used for this purpose in the pharmaceutical industry. 

There are many applications where it is necessary to monitor very low rates of flow (e.g. addition of mercaptans to natural gas in the gas industry or of anti-foaming agents to fermentation processes in the pharmaceutical industry). A low flow is considered to be of the order of 100 mm /s and an ultra-low flow of around 0.1 mm3/s for both liquids and gases. Table 6.2 includes commonly accepted minimum measurable rates of flow for types of flowmeter normally employed for this purpose02 . 

There has been considerable growth of interest in so-called Green Chemistry or Sustainable Chemistry over the last quarter century. The terms Green and Sustainable have given new prominence to fermentation and enzyme-mediated processes and to systems that operate in water. Such processes build on the already major contribution that fermentation processes make to the pharmaceutical industry. As an aside, several important classes of API owe their commercial success to the fermentation of microorganisms ... 

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