Overview: Microbes have been providing us with tangible products since the dawn of humanity, and probably before: think of foraging for mushrooms to eat and production of early fermented foods, like bread and milk products, and drinks like mead, wine and beer. However, they also gift us and the rest of the biosphere with manifold and vital goods and services, like providing oxygen we need to breathe, consuming the greenhouse gas methane, recycling biological wastes, and so forth. Whereas these activities occur without us noticing, others have been harnessed technologically and commercialised, providing us with important goods and services, and the biotechnology industry and all the employment it creates. In the past, massive reductions in mortality from infectious diseases, and resulting massive improvements in lifespan and life quality, were achieved by the development of vaccines against lethal infections and wastewater treatment processes, and later by the development of microbially-inspired antibiotics and other medicines. But microbes (and clever microbiologists) continually deliver new biotechnological applications, ranging from the production of new biodegradable materials, healthcare products for disease diagnosis, prevention, therapy and epidemiology, forensics, foods and food supplements, chemicals, environmentally-friendly extraction of natural resources, pollution mitigation, and waste recycling, among others. Let’s discover the fantastic range of applications offered by microbial biotechnology
Creation of the TFs is a work in progress: those already available are indicated by titles that are live links. Titles of those still in the pipeline are shown for context.
(For vignettes of some of the star actors in these stories, see the Designer MicroStars, MicroFactories and MicroAgrobiologicals Portrait Galleries)
Resources and techniques
- New drugs from marine microbes
- Cell factories
- Viruses in biotechnology
- Microbial surface display
- Magnetosomes and their applications
- Study Tools: Glowing and colourful proteins
Healthcare
- Drugs from microbes
- Microbial vaccines
- Bacterial therapies for cancer
- Diagnostics
- Applications of microbial toxins and virulence factors
- Microbial production of antibiotics
- Compatible solutes
Microbial Surveillance and forensics
- Wastewater-based epidemiology: biosensors
- Wastewater-based epidemiology: surveillance of illicit drugs and novel psyschoactive substances
- Microbial forensics
- Source tracking faecal contamination
- Food authentication by microbiome analysis
- The microbial forensics of historical documents
Food
- Food supplements
- Microbes and aquaculture
- Fermented foods
- Replacement of animal-derived food by microbial biotechnology
- Sustainable agriculture
Chemistry and Chemicals
- Green chemistry
- Chemistry in seawater
- Carbon capture
- Commodity chemicals by gas fermentation
- Commodities from fermentation
- Indigo
- Microbes as chemists: enzyme reaction catalysts
- Microbial sunscreens
- Novel chemistries in microbes
- Microbes as sources of dyes and pigments
- Biosurfactants
Materials
- Uses of fungi
- Smart concrete
- Microbial polymers
- Nanoparticles
Mining and Energy
- Biomining-valorisation-utilization of natural resources
- Microbially-enhanced oil recovery
- Biofuels
- Microbial fuel cells
- Biogas
Pollution mitigation
- Wastewater treatment
- Bioremediation
- Oil spills
- Metals and radioactive substance bioremediation
- Microbial removal of arsenic from water
- Plastic-degrading microbes
Recycling, recovery and upgrading
- Recycling and biorecovery of waste materials
- Recovery of resources from wastewater
- Valorisation of plant materials and wastes