ABSTRACT
Biotechnology is a scientific discipline with focus on the exploitation of metabolic properties of living organisms for the production of valuable products of a very different structural and organizational level for the benefit of men. The products can be the organisms themselves (i.e., biomass or parts of the organismic body), products of cellular or organismic metabolism (i.e., enzymes, metabolites), or products formed from endogenous or exogenous substrates with the help of single enzymes or complex metabolic routes. The organisms under question vary from microbes (bacteria, fungi) to animals and plants. In addition to intact organisms, isolated cells or enzyme preparations are employed in biotechnology. The possibility to submit the producing organisms or the cellular systems to technical and even industrial procedures has led to highly productive processes. The products of biotechnology are of importance for medicine, pharmaceutical sciences, agriculture, food production, chemistry, and numerous other disciplines.
