Main description:

The growing concern about where energy rich chemicals for the future will come from has stimulated a resurgence of interest in the potentialities of microbial fermentations to assist in meeting anti cipated demands for fuels and chemicals. While much attention has been given recently to the early deployment of alcohol production plants and similar currently available technologies, the potential future developments have received much less attention. One of the intentions of the present symposium was to look ahead and try to perceive some of the prospects for future fermentation technology. In order to accomplish this, a symposium program of sizable diversity was developed with workers giving a representative cross section of their particular specialty as an indicator of the status of basic information in their area. In addition, an attempt was made to elicit from the various participants the types of fundamental infor mation which should be generated in the coming years to enable new fermentation technology to proceed expeditiously. In organizing the symposium particular effort was made to involve workers from the academic, industrial and governmental scientific communities.

Contents:

Welcoming Remarks.- Basic Biology of Microbial Fermentation.- Cellulases of Fungi.- Regulatory Controls in Relation to Overproduction of Fungal Cellulases.- Cellulase Kinetics.- Microbial Enzymes Attacking Plant Polymeric Materials.- Cellulases: Diversity Amongst Improved Trichoderma Strains.- Xylanases: Structure and Function.- Toward Elucidating the Mechanism of Action of the Ligninolytic System in Basidiomycetes.- Amylases: Enzymatic Mechanisms.- Fermentation of Plant Polysaccharides: Role of Biochemical Genetics.- Molecular Genetics and Microbial Fermentations.- The Biochemical Genetics of Glycolysis in Microbes.- Mechanisms of Yeast Genetics.- Perspectives for Genetic Engineering of Hydrocarbon Oxidizing Bacteria.- Hydrogen Formation by the Biophotolysis of Water via Glycolate and Formate.- Hydrogenase Genes.- Conversion of Reductases to Dehydrogenases by Regulatory Mutations.- cAMP and Regulation of Carbohydrate Metabolism.- Metabolic Compromises Involved in the Growth of Microorganisms in Nutrient-Limited (Chemostat) Environments.- The Methanogenic Bacteria, Their Ecology and Physiology.- Anaerobic Fermentations of Cellulose to Methane.- Some Aspects of Thermophilic and Extreme Thermophilic Anaerobic Microorganisms.- Formation of Hydrocarbons by Bacteria and Algae.- Liquid Products.- Thermophilic Ethanol Fermentations.- Feasible Improvements of the Butanol Production by Clostridium Acetobutylicum.- Acrylate Fermentations.- Microbial Adaptations to Stress: Some Lessons to be Learned from Aerobes.- Thermophily.- End-Product Tolerance and Ethanol.- The Role of Proline in Osmoregulation in Salmonella Typhimurium in Escherichia Coli.- Poster Abstracts.- The Effect of D-Glucose and D-Fructose on the Activity of ?-Glucosidase in Trichoderma Reesei C30 Cellulase.- Ethanol Production in Fixed-Film Bioreactors Employing Zymomonas Mobilis.- Inducible ?-Xyloside Permease as a Constituent of the Xylan-Degrading Enzyme System of the Yeast Cryptococcus albidus.- Induction and Inducers of Endo-1,4-?-Xylanase in the Yeast Cryptococcus albidus.- Horizontal Fiber Fermenter.- Methanol and Carbon Monoxide Metabolism of Butyri-bacterium methylotrophicum the Marburg Strain.- Regulation of Yeast Alcohol Dehydrogenase Isozymes.- Uni- and Dicarbon Metabolism of Methanosarcina barkeri and Strain MS in Defined Medium.- Isolation of Ethanol-Tolerant Mutants of Yeast by Continuous Selection.- Induction and Regulation of Cellulase Synthesis in Trichoderma Mutants EA3 867 and N2-78.- Studies on the Production of SCP and 5'-Mononucleotides by Cellulomonas flavigena and Pseudomonas putida in Submerged Culture from Paper Pulp.- Roundtable Discussion.- Fermentation Science: Basic and Applied Research Needs.- List of Participants.