What are some of the microbe-made things we use everyday?...للطلاب و طالبات الكمياء ا

[dr-hanizb]

Microbial JanitorsResearchers are using bacteria that eat methane gas to clean up hazardous waste dumps and landfills. These methane-munching bacteria, or methanotrophs, (meth-an-oh-trofs) make an enzyme that can break down more than 250 nasty pollutants into harmless molecules. By piping methane into the soil, we can increase growth of the methanotrophs that normally live in the polluted soil. More methanotrophs means faster pollution break up.











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Microbes Make Medicine


Penicillin mold


Scientists have changed, or engineered, the genetic blueprints of bacteria and yeasts to turn them into mini medicine-making factories. They stick genes for medicines they want to make—say, insulin for diabetes—into the microbial cells, as if adding new building information to the microbe's blueprint. The scientists then grow the microbes in huge containers called fermenters where they happily reproduce into billions, all making insulin.


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Industrial-Strength Microbes


Industrial fermenters with a person for scale. What you see is only the very top of one of these large fermentors.
Courtesy of Novo Nordisk
Microbes make compounds called enzymes that we use in making hundreds of products. We grow billions of bacteria in giant fermenting tanks, like those shown here. We then break apart the bacteria to get their enzymes to make soy sauce, soda, beer, wine, cheese, infant formula, chewing gum, leather goods, paper, laundry detergent, the stone-washed look on blue jeans, etc.





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