Undaunted by questions concerning my house-cleaning, I enjoy providing examples of the importance of microorganisms in our daily lives and the myriad of foods and drugs that microbes produce. I know that microbiological discoveries have played an important part in the course of human history, contributing to advances in health, nutrition, and use of environmental resources. I was captivated and amazed, however, to learn that microbiology was instrumental in the origination of an entire country and that a microbiologist was elected a nation's president. My training and research experience is in industrial microbiology, where microorganisms are put to work to make a product.
Fermentation is an important part of industrial microbiology.
Fermentation technology got its origins the first time someone made wine, was perfected in the 1940's with the production of antibiotics, and is the now the primary method of production in the biotechnology industry. Fermentation could be called the staff of life because it gives us the basic food, bread. But how fermentation actually works was not understood until the work of Louis Pasteur in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the research which followed. Fermentation is the process that produces alcoholic beverages or acidic dairy products. For a cell, fermentation is a way of getting energy without using oxygen.