Bioprocessing (sometimes called biosynthesis) is the making of materials from natural processes. It has a long human history, in the forms of brewing beer, making wine, culturing cheese and leavening bread. Scientific understanding of bioprocessing began with Pasteur in the 1870s, and beginning around 1900 experimentation began in the use of fermentation processes to produce industrial materials. The petrochemical boom in the postwar period brought these applications of microbiology to a standstill, but it has been steadily recovering over the past few decades. Fermentation is being used to produce a range of products from organic feedstocks (like ethanol and glycerol) to amino acids, enzymes, vitamins, antibiotics and single-cell proteins. While most of the