Microbial Secondary Metabolism and Biotechnology

Abstract

In recent decades scientific research has demonstrated that the microbial world is infi-nitely richer and more surprising than we could have imagined. Every day, new molecules produced by microorganisms are discovered, and their incredible diversity has not yet delivered all of its messages. The current challenge of research is to select from the wide variety of characterized microorganisms and compounds, those which could provide rapid answers to crucial questions about human or animal health or more generally relating to society’s demands for medicine, phar-macology, nutrition or everyday well‐being.