Biocatalysis is the future... The future is now

The rapidly expanding field of industrial biotechnology (IB) encompasses the use of biological entities and processes to produce valuable materials, chemicals and energy, ideally from renewable resources. The biocatalytic route allows quantitative conversions and overcomes problems with the previous chemical route that required hydrogen cyanide and suffered from high energy consumption and unwanted by-product formation. Bioconversions employing whole microbial cells often exploit natural, or modified, metabolic pathways to facilitate product formation from simple and readily available feedstocks like glucose, glycerol or agricultural oils. Once a suitable biocatalyst has been identified, the next challenge is to enhance the rate and yield of the reaction to economically viable levels. Improvements of two to three orders of magnitude are frequently required. © 2011 Informa UK, Ltd.