Fermentation and Metabolic Engineering

Metabolic engineering is the controlled influencing and modulation of metabolic pathways for specific metabolites, e.g. to achieve improved cellular properties that can be used industrially in chemistry, medicine or material production. Fermentation is the conversion of organic substances by microorganisms into other products. On a large scale, these processes are carried out industrially in fermenters to obtain products in large quantities.

Pressure control in the fermenter
© https://pixabay.com/photos/to-control-the-temperature-beer-4950423/

Requirements for use:

Space for large fermenters
Know-how about optimal conditions for microorganisms
Technical know-how for the operation of fermenters

Regional experts:

Prof. Dr Alexander Steinbüchel

Institute for Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, WWU Münster

Prof. Dr. Jochen Schmid

Institute for Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, WWU Münster

Best practices/applications/signals:

Cysal GmbH
Biotechnological production of dipeptides and other fermentation products.

Cilian AG
Production of therapeutic proteins with ciliates in industrial scale.

Evonik
Biotechnological production of pharmaceutical amino acids in the biofermenter.

Jüke Systemtechnik GmbH

Development and production of assemblies and modules for biotechnological process control.

WeissBioTech GmbH
Production of enzymes for the production of alcohol, biotethanol, starch.

Wessling GmbH
Analysis of fermentation products, e.g. in biogas production.