In the alcohol industry, fermentation is traditionally used to make beer or wine. Fermentation as a research tool, however, is employed to grow large amounts of biomass, to express high-value and high-yield products including metabolites, chemicals and proteins, to establish reproducible cell cultures (chemostats and turbidostats), and to optimise strains for a specific trait. Microorganisms, such as yeasts and bacteria, and insect and mammalian cell lines can all be grown in fermenters under well-controlled conditions. These cultures allow scientists to investigate questions spanning the full breadth of biological research, ranging from studies of gene function to explorations of systems adaptations.
The Fermentation Facility provides considerable expertise to worldwide researchers in industrial and academic environments in customised fermentations, medium formulation, parameter optimisation, and scale-up services. The Facility offers small-scale (100mL-1L) and medium-sized (3L-20L) fermentation, biomass harvesting, and product shipment.