Contribution of genetics to the production and discovery of microbial pharmaceuticals

Recombinant DNA technology, hybridoma technology, enzyme engineering and protein engineering are all parts of the new biotechnology which is having a major effect on research in health care, diagnostics, agriculture and promises to make inroads in the practices of other industries such as petroleum, mining, foods and chemicals. Genetics has had a long history of contributions to the production of microbial pharmaceuticals, especially antibiotics. antibiotic productivity and the resulting decreases in costs have come about mainly by mutation and screening for higher producing microbial strains. Although mutation was used for forty years to improve antibiotic production, genetic recombination had been virtually ignored. called "protoplast fusion" changed the situation markedly.