Merck Millipore offers high quality peptones as well as extracts from meat and yeast for fermentation processes in lab and production scale quantities to the Biotech industry.

In order to be cost-effective, the aim in modern biotechnology fermentation is to yield high amounts of microorganisms and / or substances produced by microorganisms during cultivation. This is mainly achieved by the development of "taylor-made" culture media by the laboratories themselves. Of particular importance is the usage of the appropriate raw materials that need to be carefully selected to most effectively stimulate these microorganisms.

High quality peptones are key raw materials to support microbial growth because they serve as substrates for nitrogen and carbon in culture media. Peptones are complex products obtained from animal, plant or microbial origin by enzymatic or acid hydrolysis of proteins or raw materials with high protein content. For a high-yield fermentation, media often need to be supplemented with extracts prepared from meat and yeast as they contain important vitamins and other important growth factors. Such extracts are produced from water soluble fractions obtained by soaking meat or yeasts in water for a defined period of time and subsequent filtration to a clear solution. Besides their important application in culture media, it has also been shown that e.g. yeast extract has the potential to replace serum in cell culture media.

Various peptones, e.g. from Casein, meat, soy bean as well as extracts from meat and yeast, but also other raw materials for fermentation are available from Merck in known high quality which comes along with the following benefits for users:

1. Health and Safety:
Merck is the only culture media manufacturer who offers fermentation materials in granulated and not in powdered form. This drastically reduces dust development in laboratories and this in turn significantly reduces the risk of lab personnel acquiring health problems (e.g. coughing response, allergies) due to handling these materials. Further, in contrast to powder, granulated materials have a much lower risk of clump formation, and this in turn leads to a much quicker and uniform dissolution of the medium.

2. Documentation
As documentation and origin of raw materials becomes more and more important in the Biotech industry, Merck only offers raw materials which are derived from countries and animal parts with no BSE risk. Information about origin and animal parts are explicitly described in certificates available for each batch.

3. Various package sizes
Different package sizes from 0,5 to 25 kg enables the users to scale up the process from the early steps in R&D up to large scale fermentation during production with raw materials from the same supplier in the same quality.