Biotechnology

What you NEED to know

Dairy Industries:

• Milk is a food containing sugar, fat, protein, vitamins and minerals

• Milk contains bacteria
• The level of bacteria in the milk is used as a test of freshness
• Resazurin dye is used to show the level of bacteria in the milk and
therefore its quality.

Colour of Dye Milk Quality

Purple Good
Mauve Satisfactory
Pink Poor
Clear Unfit to drink

• Heat treatment destroys bacteria

• Pasteurisation destroys disease causing organisms
• UHT treatment preserves milk and prolongs shelf life

Milk Treatments Result

Remove 50% water Evaporated milk
Remove all fat Skimmed milk
Remove 50% fat Semi-skimmed milk
Heat to 72oC for 15 seconds Pasteurised milk
Heat to 142oC for 5 seconds UHT milk

• Treatments change the taste of the milk

Yoghurt:

• Adding bacteria to pasteurised milk makes yoghurt

• Sugar in the milk is changed to lactic acid. This thickens the milk
and gives yoghurt its flavour
• Yoghurt is a way of preserving milk
• Method – Heat to 43oC
Add starter culture of bacteria
Incubate at 43oC for 7 hours
Store in fridge
Cheese:

• Method – Add special bacteria to pasteurised milk

Bacteria convert sugar to lactic acid and affect flavour
Enzymes (rennet) are added to clot the milk
• Rennet is an enzyme used to clot protein in milk
• The clotted protein is solid and called curds
• The liquid left over is called Whey
• Rennet comes from – Calves
Genetically engineered yeast
Fungus

Environmental Impact of Dairy Industry:

• Whey is a food source for bacteria

• If put into rivers – Bacteria multiply
Oxygen levels fall
Other animals die due to lack of oxygen
• Whey can be upgraded – changed into something useful
• Yeast can be fed on whey in a fermenter while they are growing
and making alcohol (e.g. Baileys Irish Cream)
• Food for animals

Yeast Industries:

Bread:

• Yeast is a single celled fungus

• Yeast can be grown in huge numbers in fermenters
• In bread making yeast produces carbon dioxide to make dough rise

Beer:

• Beer is made form water, barley, sugar, hops and yeast

• The type of yeast, the temperature and the fermentation time
affect the alcohol content of the beer
• Fermentation is the process of yeast converting sugar to alcohol
and carbon dioxide
• Cask conditioned beer is real ale – yeast is not removed and carbon
dioxide is continually produced
 • Brewery conditioned beer has had the yeast removed and carbon
dioxide is added

Kefir:

• To preserve milk it can be fermented

• Enzymes are added to convert milk sugar to lactic acid
• Yeast is added to convert milk sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide
• Kefir is a fermented milk drink
• Immobilising the yeast and enzymes means that they can be used
over and over again and are easily separated from the product

Flavourings:

• Yeast is added to crisps, oxo cubes and marmite

• Red yeast is fed to farmed salmon to give them pink coloured flesh

Environmental Impact of Yeast Industry:

• Yeast based waste is a food for bacteria

• If out into rivers – Bacteria multiply
Oxygen levels fall
Other animals die due to lack of oxygen
• Yeast can be upgraded
• Food for animals e.g. cattle cake
• Fed on waste whey which is converted to alcohol (Baileys Irish
Cream)

Detergents:

• Biological detergent contains enzymes

• The enzymes are made by bacteria in large fermenters
• To prevent allergic reactions, the enzymes are inside a harmless
coating
• The enzymes digest stains at a lower temperature
• Biological washing powders save energy and reduce damage to
fabrics
• Temperatures above 60oC destroy the enzymes

Environmental Impact of Detergent Industry:

 • Washing at lower temperatures reduces fuel consumptions
• Pollution could be reduced because less fossil fuels are burned in
power stations
• Detergents contain chemicals which increase algae growth in rivers
• When the algae die they are – food for bacteria
Bacteria multiply
Oxygen levels fall
Other animals die
• Environmental impact can be reduced by
• Reducing the chemicals in detergents
• Removing the chemicals at the sewage works before release

Pharmaceutical Industries:

Antibiotics:

• Alexander Flemming discovered antibiotics

• Fungi naturally make antibiotics
• Antibiotics destroy and prevent further growth of bacteria
• Antibiotics only act on bacteria not viruses
• Different antibiotics are effective against different bacteria
• On an agar plate the wider the clear zone, the more effective the
antibiotic against the bacteria
• Antifungals are chemicals which limit the growth of a fungus
• Fungal infections such as athletes foot and thrush are treated
using antifungals
• Antibiotics can be made using genetically modified micro-organisms
(their genes have been changed so that the micro-organism makes
different chemicals than it normally would)
• Antibiotics are made in large fermenters
• Fermenters are computer controlled to monitor conditions e.g.
temperature
• Antibiotics are easily removed and purified from the fermenter

Environmental Impact of Pharmaceutical Industry:

• Overuse of antibiotics can result in bacteria being resistant to

them – they stop destroying the bacteria
• New antibiotics are continuously being developed