ABSTRACT
Two principal factors distinguish bioreactions from other reaction systems. The first concerns the biological nature of the reactions themselves – these involve either living materials or at least entities, even unicomponent biocatalysts, derived from such living material. The second concerns the type of products. The living cells that we are concerned with in bioreactor design fall into various categories each of which may present different problems to the design engineer. The chapter explains about the smallest living organisms and work upwards: viruses; bacteria; fungi; animal cells; and Plant cell culture. Viruses – either whole or attenuated are used as vaccines in order to raise an immune response to infectious disease in humans or domestic animals. Animal cells have originally been excised from animal tissue which has been broken up into individual cells by enzymic action. The chapter also considers the needs of bioproduct synthesis.
