Fungi in food and pharmaceutical industries

Abstract

Biotransformation technology constitutes not only an exciting opportunity to build a novel generation of products or processes but also an environment friendly tool. In addition, those procedures offer an alternative to overcome specific bottlenecks resulting in potential fast track innovation on new product developments. They are performed via growing cells, resting cells, crude extracts, and partially purified or purified enzymes using either free or immobilized preparations. Furthermore, there is an emerging interest in the use of endophytic fungi for biotransformations mainly because their biodegradation and biosynthesis capacities. In this chapter, overall trends and recent advances on fungal biotransformations are presented mainly focusing on pharmaceutical and food industries and their current market potential. The status of academic articles and the panorama of invention patents published during the last decades are discussed.