…AND I DREAM OF FERMENTORS

My love for fermentation technology or more specifically fermentors, start with my disillusionment with biology. I have studied biology for a substantial amount of my school and undergraduate days in the sixties and seventies. The biology syllabus both in schools and universities never really did change or keep up with times. It has always been taxonomy, biodiversity, anatomy etc etc.

Right from lower secondary schools to preuniversity and even university it is always the repeating chants of..”xylem, phloem, antipodal cells…………..” Repeating the Latin names of flowers and plants and insects… Yughhhhhh!!!

The point of crossing in my life came accidentally. ( Or was it destiny??) It was the day when my science teacher told me about the wonders of microbes or germs!. (Guess he didn’t know much what he was talking about then!!!..hehehe) . But he did arouse my curiosity! I just cant avoid wondering how something so small and cant be seen got so much power to cause diseases and make beer?. Wow!! That was really something and mind blowing!

During my final or Honours year, I recalled being taken on an industrial visit to a monosodium glutamate factory, brewery and even a conventional wastewater treatment plant! Wow! Was I impressed by the scale of the stainless steel fermentors and the capacity of microorganisms to produce the fermentation products. From that moment in time I was smitten in love with fermentors!. You can never realized how a simple field trip can leave you with a lasting impression more than the hours spent in lecture halls and laboratories

By the end of my undergraduate years I was very sure that Industrial microbiology or more precisely fermentation technology will be the obsession of my life.

I decided to pursue Industrial microbiology at the Wolfson Laboratory for Industrial Microbiology at the Department of Microbiology. During that circa, the Department of microbiology was in the era that has become to many la belle epoque of Cardiff microbiology . There were the giants of industrial microbiology at the department such as Prof DE Hughes who headed the department with illustrious staff such as EC Hill, DA Stafford, JWT Wimpenny, AG Callely, strong names in industrial microbiology.

Activities of the Wolfson Laboratory for industrial microbiology, including with Mr Ted Hill, some of the earliest work on bioremediation of oil spillage in coastal waters (Torrey Canyon Disaster, off the Cornish coast in 1967). Over the next decade this group pioneered the scientific study of large scale anaerobic digestion treatment plants for the treatment of farm and domestic wastes and the recovery and use of methane.

The department have strong contacts and research grants with various industries ranging from wastewater treatment to even petroleum microbiology.

Fermentors were the in thing in the department then. Wimpenny studied oxygen metabolism, cellulose production and gradstat using the fermentors. Stafford was using fermentors to study anaerobic digestion. Hughes was studying Sphaerotilus natans using fermentors. Hill was studing oil degradation with fermentors

Till today fermentors still fascinate me as it did years ago…..!!!


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