Microbial Fermentation – How to Produce Almost Anything 

Published by Saleh Akrami on

In its more than ten-thousand-year-long history, microbial fermentation has come a long way – from preserving food to becoming a cornerstone of modern biotechnology. While the foundational principles stayed the same, our growing knowledge and technological development yielded new ways of using the same tool.  Advances in microbiology, process engineering, genetics, and data analysis have created a complex amalgamation that is today seen as a herald of the biotech revolution – precision fermentation.

Foundational Principles – What is Microbial Fermentation?

Fermentation is defined as a chemical transformation of organic matter via microbial activity, mediated by enzymes. This simple definition encompasses anything from the production of cheese and sauerkraut to the production of novel advanced materials and cutting-edge pharmaceuticals.

Until recently, fermentation was primarily used as a tool for yielding products that result from microbial processing of a specific substrate. That changed with a new concept – microbes as cell factories. The novel approach was unlocked by developments in strain engineering and shifted the view from microbes as producers to microbes themselves being the production facility. This concept became the foundation for a new type of fermentation approach – precision fermentation.

What is Precision Fermentation?

Precision fermentation is an advanced application of biotechnology where specific microbes are genetically engineered to produce desired compounds. In this process, the DNA of a microbe is modified to include the gene responsible for producing a particular compound. The engineered microbe is then cultivated in a bioreactor under controlled conditions to produce the desired product.

Traditional Fermentation vs Precision Fermentation

Although both traditional and precision fermentation stand on the same foundations, comparing them is similar to comparing a simple hammer to an automated hammer drill – the latter is simply more advanced and effective. 

Unlike its traditional counterpart, precision fermentation isn’t limited by microbes’ natural genetic predispositions, and by allowing a great level of bioprocess optimization and control, it yields more consistent results with less resources. This however doesn’t indicate that traditional fermentation is losing relevance; quite the contrary – fermentation capacities are increasing globally. There are many fermentation-derived products that don’t require such a high level of engineering, process control, and sophistication – where a simple hammer is enough to do the job.

Both traditional and precision fermentation offer a wide array of benefits and advantages that allow them to deliver effective, sustainable, and competitive products to various manufacturing industries (food, pharma, chemicals, advanced materials, to name a few).

Benefits and Advantages of Microbial Fermentation

  1. Efficiency and Scalability
    With their short life cycles and exponential growth, microbes can enable the production of large quantities of a desired product in a relatively short time frame, making fermentation quite an efficient tool. This efficiency, combined with the ability to scale up production in bioreactors, enables a wide range of industrial applications.
  2. Cost-Effectiveness
    Once optimized, fermentation processes can be cost-effective, especially for producing complex molecules that would be difficult, timely, or expensive to produce synthetically. This cost advantage is especially evident in the pharmaceutical industry, where fermentation is used to produce high-value ingredients like antibiotics, insulin, and other critical drugs.
  3. Versatility
    The genetic versatility of the microbes themselves combined with strain engineering tools enable the creation of microbial cell factories that can produce almost anything – food ingredients, fragrances, flavors, ag input materials, bioplastics, vaccines, etc. This versatility makes it a powerful tool in biotechnology, with applications in health, agriculture, energy, and more.
  4. Sustainability and Environmental Impact
    Fermentation processes, especially those using renewable resources like organic wastes, generally have a lower environmental footprint compared to traditional manufacturing approaches. Biofuels, bioplastics, biopesticides, and animal-free food ingredients are just some of the many environmentally-friendly alternatives fermentation has to offer.

Takeaway

The simple “chemical transformation of organic matter via microbial activity, mediated by enzymes” definition hides the incredible potential of fermentation to fully seize the power of microbes and transform multiple industries. Fermentation technologies are the tools that catalyze the much-anticipated biological transition in modern manufacturing industries and offer an almost endless source of novel solutions.

If you want to learn more about microbial fermentation, specifically in agriculture, check out another piece on this topic: Microbial fermentation: from strain to product.



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