Life science research and industry is developing rapidly all over the world. Microbial biotechnology is increasingly being regarded as a core subject in most university and polytechnic life science courses. There already exist a number of excellent general textbooks on microbiology and biotechnology that deal with the basic principles of the field. To complement them, this book focuses on the various applications of microbial-biotechnological principles. A teaching-based format is adopted, whereby working problems, as well as answers to frequently asked questions, supplement the main text. The book also includes real life examples of how the application of microbial-biotechnological principles has achieved breakthroughs in both research and industrial production.

Although Microbial Biotechnology has been written for polytechnic students and undergraduates, it contains sufficient information to be used as a reference for postgraduate students and lecturers. It may also serve as a resource book for corporate planners, managers and applied research personnel.

The rapidly expanding molecular biological techniques and approaches have significant impact on microbial biotechnology, hence the need for the addition of four new chapters in the third edition of this textbook — “Chapter 3: Application of ‘Omics’ Technologies in Microbial Fermentation”, “Chapter 5: Microbial Genome Mining for Identifying Antimicrobial Targets”, “Chapter 21: Bacterial Biofilm: Molecular Characterization and Impacts on Water Management” and “Chapter 23: Microbial Biomining”. “Chapter 15: Transgenic Plants” has been completely revised while most of the other chapters have been thoroughly updated in this new edition.There already exist a number of excellent general textbooks on microbiology and biotechnology that deal with the basic principles of microbial biotechnology. To complement them, this book focuses on the various applications of microbial-biotechnological principles. A teaching-based format is adopted, whereby working problems, as well as answers to frequently asked questions, supplement the main text. The book also includes real life examples of how the application of microbial-biotechnological principles has achieved breakthroughs in both research and industrial production.Although written for polytechnic students and undergraduates, the book contains sufficient information to be used as a reference for postgraduate students and lecturers. It may also serve as a resource book for corporate planners, managers and applied research personnel.