文档介绍：Preface
The aim of the Advances of Biochemical Engineering/Biotechnology is to keep
the reader informed on the recent progress in the industrial application of
biology. ical engineering, metabolism ond bioprocess development includ-
ing analytics, automation and new software are the dominant fields of interest.
Thereby progress made in microbiology, plant and animal cell culture has been
reviewed for the last decade or so.
The Special Issue on the History of Biotechnology (splitted into and 70)
is an exception to the otherwise forward oriented editorial covers a time
span of approximately fifty years and describes the changes from a time with
rather characteristic features of empirical strategies to highly developed and
specialized enterprises. ess of the present biotechnology still depends on
substantial investment in R & D undertaken by private and public investors,
researchers, and enterpreneurs. Also a number of new scientific and business
anisations aim at the promotion of science and technology and the
transfer to active enterprises, capital raising, improvement of education and
fostering international relationships. Most of these activities related to modern
biotechnology did not exist immediately after the war. Scientists worked in
small groups and an established science policy didn’t exist.
This situation explains the long period of time from the detection of the anti-
biotic effect by Alexander Fleming in 1928 to the rat and mouse testing by Brian
Chain and Howart Florey (1940). The following developments up to the produc-
tion level were a real breakthrough not only biologically (penicillin was the first
antibiotic) but also technically (first scaled-up microbial mass culture under
sterile conditions). The antibiotic industry provided the processing strategies
for strain improvement (selection of mutants) and the search for new strains
(screening) as well as the technologies for the aseptic mass culture and dow