There are over 550 bioscience companies in the UK employing more than 40 000 people many of whom are microbiologists.

They carry out research and develop new products; they also work in quality control to monitor manufacturing processes and check the microbiological safety of goods. Other work is done away from the laboratory. Some of these jobs and industries are described in more detail below.

"Big Pharma"

The traditional British pharmaceutical industry is a great commercial success. Big Pharma companies employ thousands of scientists in research facilities and manufacturing plants.

The industry has pioneered the development and manufacture of a wide range of products designed to improve human and animal health. An important example is the continued development of antibiotics to combat diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms. Many microbes have acquired resistance to the antibiotics used against them and the pharmaceutical industry works towards modifying existing products and developing new ones in its effort to stay one step ahead.

Advances in gene technology have revolutionised the production of medicines such as insulin which is produced by genetically modified microbes. Previously the hormone was extracted from the carcasses of horses and pigs.

The large-scale culture of microbes in fermenters requires special skills in the area where microbiology and chemical engineering overlap. "Scaling-up" the growth of microorganisms from a flask in the laboratory (up to 10 litres of culture), through pilot scale fermenters (25-1000 litres) to full production (1-100 tonnes) is not an easy task and each culture behaves differently. Industrial microbiologists are also needed for downstream processing - the recovery and processing of the actual therapeutic compounds from the fermenters.

Microbiologists are also employed to evaluate drugs in clinical trials, and in the registration of new products.

Biotechnology start-up companies and "spin-outs"

The number of UK based small to medium size biotechnology companies has increased dramatically in recent years. These organisations develop biopharmaceuticals or produce specialist instruments for use in the biomedical, healthcare or biotechnology fields. Some companies known as "spin-outs" are set up by universities to exploit the commercial potential of their academic research.

Biochemicals

Microbiologists are involved in the production and quality testing of many other useful compounds, including amino acids, antiseptics, organic acids and proteins.

Using microbes to produce enzymes for scientific use is an industry in its own right. Many diagnostic procedures in clinical biochemistry use microbial enzymes, and a long list of bacterial enzymes is sold for use in molecular biology techniques like DNA "fingerprinting".

We all know the benefits of adding (microbial) enzymes to washing detergents. Clothes can be cleaned at lower temperatures, using less detergent and water softener in the powder, leading directly or indirectly to reduced pollution.

Some enzymes used in the food industry are also made on a large scale from microbes.

Cosmetics & toiletries

Microbiologists check the effectiveness of anti-microbial products such as creams against acne and anti-dandruff shampoos and develop preservative systems to ensure that cosmetics and toiletries are free from microbial contamination both during manufacture and use by the consumer.