In industry
A bacterium that has been given a new gene will make whatever that gene codes for, and it will do so in a tank, continuously, as fast as it can divide.
Why bacteria are used
Bacteria divide extremely quickly, are cheap to feed, and grow in a closed tank where the conditions can be controlled exactly. Put a gene into one bacterium and within a day there are billions, every one of them carrying that gene and making its product.
Enzymes for detergents
Enzymes that break down fats, starch and protein stains, produced in bulk by engineered bacteria and added to washing powder so clothes wash clean at lower temperatures.
Enzymes for food processing
Enzymes used in making cheese, bread, fruit juice and syrups, which once had to be extracted from animals or plants in small quantities.
Industrial chemicals
Organic acids, solvents and biofuels made by fermentation rather than from petroleum.
Cleaning up pollution
Micro-organisms engineered to break down oil spills or specific toxic wastes into harmless products.
The organism is the equipment
An engineered bacterium is not a chemical plant's raw material; it is the plant. It builds itself, repairs itself, runs at ordinary temperatures and pressures, and makes more of itself for free. Very little industrial machinery can claim as much.
All of it rests on one shared code
A bacterium can make a human enzyme because a gene means the same thing in both. Every application in this skill — industrial, agricultural and medical — is cashing in on the fact that all life on Earth uses the same four bases in the same way.