Microbes bear a great potential for their biotechnological applications. Without microbes biotechnology would be a limited science. In recent years, the scope of application and significance of microbiology has enlarged manifold. They are being employed since several decades for large-scale production of a variety of biochemicals ranging from alcohols to organic chemicals, antibiotics, enzymes and in processing of foods and feeds, etc. The book MICROBIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY: Methods and Applications covers an amazing range of topics from microbiology and their biotechnological applications in the field of industry, agriculture, food, pharmaceutics, medicine, environment etc. contributed by eminent subject experts, academicians, researchers and scientists from India and Abroad. This book would cater to the need of the graduate and post graduate students pursuing their study in any branch of life-sciences, researchers and scientists working in the laboratories and industries involved in the study and research in the field of microbes and their biotechnological applications. Preface / Production of Pyruvic Acid, 2-keto Acids and Chiral 2-hydroxy Acids using Glycolate Oxidase and Catalase Co-expressed in Pichia pastoris / Application of Immobilized Microbial Cells for Enzyme Production with Special Reference to Tannase / Utilization of Algal Biomass as Biofuels / Microbial Degradation of Caffeine, Methylxanthines and Its Biotechnological Applications / Bacillus thuringiensis: Biodiversity to Biotechnology / Agrobacterium tumefaciens: A Powerful Tool for Transkingdom Transfer of Genetic Materials / An Overview on Microbial Biocontrol for a Sustainable Horticultural Practice / Mushroom Glucan as Biological Response Modifier in Therapy / In silico Identification of Potential Therapeutic Targets in Pathogens An Overview / Microbial Studies to Establish Possible Biocompatible Coatings of Ferrofluids, Synthesized Biomimetically, for Biomedical Applica

This book principally contains practical aspects of biotechnology, its theoretical background, working principles, and procedures meant for conducting experiments in laboratories. The experiments in this book are spread out throughout different chapters such as Biochemistry, Microbiology, Immunology, Molecular biology, Plant and Animal Biotechnology, Environmental Technology, Industrial Biotechnology, Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. Furthermore, a chapter has been devoted towards discussion on safety guidelines, setting up of a biotechnology laboratory, ethical issues concerning microbiology and genetic engineering work along with different reagent preparation for conducting laboratory experiments. Each chapter aims to describe both the theory and relevant practical details for a given technique, and to identify both the potential and limitations of the technique. This book is designed as an intensive introduction to the various tools of molecular biology. It introduces all the basic methods of molecular biology including cloning, PCR, Southern blotting, Northern blotting, Western blotting, DNA sequencing. This book is useful for final year undergraduate (especially project) students, post-graduate research students and research scientists and technicians who wish to understand and use new techniques in the field of Biotechnology.