BIOPROCESSES: CHARACTERISTICS, TYPES, ADVANTAGES AND STAGES - BIOLOGY - 2025

A bioprocess is a specific methodology that uses living cells, or also other components thereof (enzymes, organelles, among others), to achieve the obtaining of a desired product for the industry or for the benefits of the human being. The bioprocess allows the obtaining of already known products, under optimal environmental conditions, with a higher quality than the traditional way of generating it.

In the same way, bioprocesses allow the obtaining of genetically modified organisms that can be used in order to improve the efficiency of specific processes (enzymes or proteins to be used in medical treatments, such as insulin) or be consumed directly by the human being. human.

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Society and technology can use bioprocesses in different areas to lead to better and new techniques. It is applicable to different areas such as food manufacturing, inducing improvements in these, creating medicines, controlling pollution of different types and also controlling global warming.

Currently, the various bioprocesses in the industry have had a positive impact and millions of dollars in investments have been made to promote its growth.

characteristics

In the sciences of biotechnology, a bioprocess is a process that uses some particular biological entity that generates as a product some substance of certain added value.

That is, the use of a cell, microorganism or cell portion generates a product desired by the researcher, which may have applications in some area.

In addition, there is bioprocessing engineering, which seeks to design and develop equipment for the manufacture of a wide variety of products, related to agriculture, the generation of food and medicine, the creation of chemicals, among others, starting from biological materials.

Thanks to the existence of bioprocess engineering, biotechnology can translate into benefits for society.

Goals of bioprocesses

Biologists and engineers who participate in the development of bioprocesses seek to promote the implementation of this technology, since it allows:

-Through bioprocesses, chemicals of significant value can be generated. However, the quantities that are generally produced are somewhat small.

-Bioprocesses allow the synthesis or modification of products already obtained by the traditional route using the activity of previously isolated microorganisms. These can be amino acids or other organic materials, food, among others.

-Transformation of substances in considerable volumes, such as alcohols. These procedures often involve substances with little value.

-Through the use of organisms or parts of these, residues and toxic waste can be degraded to transform them into substances that can be easily recycled. These processes are also relevant in the mining industry, with the concentration of metals and the exploitation of virgin mines.

Advantages and disadvantages of the application of bioprocesses

-Advantage

The existence of bioprocesses provides a series of outstanding advantages, including energy savings for the processing of substances, as follows:

Friendly conditions for workers

Most bioprocesses use enzymes, which are protein catalysts in nature. These work at a temperature, level of acidity and pressure similar to those that living organisms resist, for this reason the processes occur under "friendly" conditions.

In contrast, with the extreme temperatures and pressures at which the chemical catalysts used in traditional processes work. In addition to saving energy, working in human-friendly conditions makes the procedure safer and makes the process easier.

Another consequence of this fact is the reduction of the environmental impact, since the products of the enzymatic reactions are not toxic waste. In contrast to the waste produced by standard methodologies.

Manufacturing complexes are smaller, simpler, and fairly flexible, so there is no need for a large capital investment.

-Disadvantages

Although bioprocesses have many advantages, there are still weak points within the applied methodologies, such as:

Contamination

One of the most important is an intrinsic consequence of working with biological systems: susceptibility to contamination. For this reason, it must be worked under very controlled aseptic conditions.

In the event that the crops become contaminated, the microorganisms, the catalysts or the products obtained may be destroyed or lose their functionality, causing considerable losses to the industry.

Generate large-scale crops

Another problem is related to the manipulation of labor organisms. Generally, genetics and molecular biology laboratories work with micro-organisms on a small scale, where their cultivation and optimal development are easier.

However, extrapolating the process to mass cultivation of microorganisms poses a series of obstacles.

Methodologically speaking, the large-scale production of microorganisms is complicated and if it is not carried out in the correct way, it can lead to the genetic instability of the system and the heterogeneity of the growing organisms.

Producers seek to have a homogeneous crop in order to maximize the production of the substance in question. However, controlling the variability that we find in all biological systems is a large-scale problem.

In conclusion, the production of microorganisms for industrial use is not simply to increase the production carried out in the laboratory, since this change in scale has a series of drawbacks.

Types

The use of microorganisms or other biological entities for the production of substances of interest to humans is very varied. In production, waste compounds can be isolated from the microorganism to be purified and used.

Likewise, the organism can be modified by applying genetic engineering tools to direct production. This methodology opens a range of possibilities of the products that can be obtained.

In other cases, it may be the genetically modified organism (and not what can be produced with it) that is of interest.

Stages of a bioprocess

As the term “bioprocess” encompasses a very heterogeneous and diverse series of techniques, it is difficult to encompass its stages.

-Stage to produce insulin

If you are working with modified organisms in the laboratory, the first step is modification. In order to describe a specific methodology, we will describe the manufacture of a typical recombinant DNA of a product such as insulin, growth hormone or any other common product.

Genetic manipulation

To bring the product to market, the host organism must be genetically manipulated. In this case, the organism is usually Escherichia coli and the cloned DNA will be animal DNA. In this context, "cloned" DNA does not mean that we want to clone an entire organism, it is simply the fragment of the gene of interest.

If we want to produce insulin, we must identify the segment of DNA that has the necessary information for the production of said protein.

After identification, the segment of interest is cut and inserted into the E. coli bacteria. That is, the bacterium serves as a small production factory, and the researcher gives it the "instructions" by inserting the gene.

This is the stage of genetic engineering, which is carried out on a small scale and by a molecular biologist or a specialized biochemist. In this step, basic laboratory equipment is required, such as micropipettes, microcentrifuges, restriction enzymes, and equipment to make electrophoresis gels.

To understand the bioprocess, it is not a requirement to understand all the details that cloning implies, the important thing is to understand that the expression levels of the desired product must be optimal and the stability of the product must also be adequate.

Quantify

After the cloning process, the next step is to measure the growth and characteristics of the recombinant cells from the previous step. To do this, you must have skills in microbiology and kinetics.

It must be taken into account that all environmental variables such as temperature, composition of the medium and pH are optimal, to ensure maximum production. In this step, some parameters such as cell growth rate, specific productivity and the product are quantified.

Increase in scale

After the methodology to produce the desired substance has been standardized, the production scale is increased, and 1 or 2 liters of the culture are prepared in a bioreactor.

In this, the temperature and pH conditions must continue to be maintained. Special attention must be paid to the oxygen concentration required by the culture.

Subsequently, the researchers increasingly increase the scale of production, reaching up to 1,000 liters (the quantity also depends on the desired product).

-Stages of fermentation

As we mentioned, bioprocesses are very broad and not all involve the steps described in the previous section. For example, fermentation in the concrete and classic example of a bioprocess. In this microorganisms are used, such as fungi and bacteria.

The microorganisms grow in a medium with carbohydrates that they will use for growth. In this way, the waste product that they produce are those that have industrial value. Among these we have alcohol, lactic acid, among others.

Once the substance of interest is produced by the microorganism, it is concentrated and purified. Endless foods (bread, yogurt) and beverages (beers, wine, among others) valuable for human consumption are made using this bioprocess.

References

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4. National Research Council. (1992). Putting Biotechnology to work: bioprocess engineering. National Academies Press.
5. Najafpour, G. (2015). Biochemical engineering and biotechnology. Elsevier.