Industrial Research 



261 



Biological Products 



Vitamins. — In the last decade the vitamins have 

 moved on from the research laboratory to a place in 

 industry. The developments in the vitamin field are an 

 excellent example of research work leading to the 

 establishment of new industries. It is estimated that 

 the sales value of pharmaceutical vitamin products, such 

 as Viosterol, cod-liver and Haliver oils, amounts, 

 annually, to $125,000,000 in the United States. The 

 value of food products sold on the basis of their v^itamin 

 content must amount to many times that of the phar- 

 maceutical products. Milk and cereals which have 

 been treated so as to enhance or restore their vitamin 

 potency are produced in large volume. Oleomargarine 

 fortified with vitamin A is another product featuring the 

 vitamin content as a basis of sale. Most infant foods 

 are now prepared with carefid regard for their vitamin 

 content. Many poultry and dog feeds are compoimded 

 with a view to insuring an adequate supply of these 

 nutritional elements, and sales are promoted to a con- 

 siderable degree by the advertising of the vitamin 

 content. The volume of this business is increasing 

 rapidly. 



Restoration to food products of various vitamins 

 removed in processing is today one of the outstanding 

 questions under discussion by nutritionists, medical 

 men, and food manufacturers. Although there is no 

 general agreement as to the proper extent of such resto- 

 ration or fortification or the procedure that will best 

 conserve the public health, there can be no doubt 

 that the tendency is toward increasing the vitamin 

 content of foods. 



In the beg innin g the recognition of the existence of a 

 vitamin was the work of the biologist, or of chemists 

 trained in biology, and all through the stages of puri- 

 fication, isolation, and synthesis the work is guided by 

 biological assay. Without this guidance the chemist 

 would be imable to plan his work or to know the results 

 obtained. 



When the interest in, or need for, a vitamin has 

 reached the dimensions of a public demand, the problem 

 becomes one of manufacture. Then the work of the 

 chemist and the engineer becomes of importance. But 

 even here, satisfactory control of the quality of the 

 product must be maintained. Where suitable chemical 

 methods become available, the biological assay gives 

 place to the chemical analysis for vitamin control. The 

 use of micro-organisms in place of rats for assaying 

 vitamin products is a recent development. 



Enzymes. — The enzyme rennin has been used in the 

 cheese industry for centuries. However, only relatively 

 recently has the importance of this class of very reactive 

 agents in the chemical processes of the living cell been 

 recognized. Still more recently the possibility of 

 extracting enzymes from the tissues and of using them to 



cause desired chemical transformations in industry has 

 been attended with considerable success. The number 

 and kinds of enzymes are enormous, and their discovery 

 and application present fields for practically unlimited 

 research. 



There are available commercial enzyme preparations 

 such as invcrtase from yeast, pepsin, rennin, papain, 

 pancreatic extracts, diastatic malt extracts, and micro- 

 bial proteases and amylases. Other types of enzymes 

 could no doubt be prepared in large quantities if 

 applications were developed. 



Two of the well-known commercial uses of enzymes 

 are found in the leather and textile industries. Origi- 

 nally in the tanning industry, the sweating of hides 

 was followed by puering with dog or bird excreta, 

 and in the textile industry dosizing of fabrics was done 

 in stagnant water. Following the discovery that the 

 desired reactions are due to specific enzymes, the use of 

 crude mixtures of animal feces was discarded and a 

 standardized enzyme preparation was substituted. 



In the food industries, many applications of enzymic 

 properties have been made. Invertase preparations 

 are widely used to produce a noncrystallizable soft 

 cream center for chocolate-coated confections. In- 

 vertase is also being used in effecting the partial hy- 

 drolysis of sugar syrups. In the meat industry, plant 

 proteases like papain and bromelin have been success- 

 fully used to make various meat products tender. On 

 the other hand, some food industries are primarily 

 interested in the inhibition of enzymatic action; for 

 example, quick-frozen foods are first scalded to render 

 the enzymes inert. 



Studies of the enzyme systems in citrus fruits have 

 resulted in a process for stabilizing the natural clouding 

 of citrus juice, and there is in use also a process for 

 drying orange pulp for cattle feed which uses enzymic 

 action to increase the capacity of the driers. In the 

 production of pectin from apple pomace, the disturbing 

 presence of starch has been eliminated by the applica- 

 tion of fungous amylases. Other fungous preparations 

 containing pectinase have recently been introduced for 

 the clarification of various fruit juice beverages. In 

 the brewing industry, bacterial amylase preparations 

 are in use for the liquefaction of unmalted cereals such 

 as corn and rice. Proteolytic enzymes are used, not 

 only in the early stages of manufacture to render soluble 

 the proteins of the mash, but also in the final clarifica- 

 tion of malt beverages by removal of the protein haze. 



For the manufacture of various sizing pastes to be 

 used in the paper industry, amylases offer particular 

 advantages because of the various grades of material 

 which can be uniformly produced. Other interesting 

 applications of enzymes include their use to digest the 

 gelatin in the recovery of silver from used photographic 

 films and in the deproteinizing of rubber to produce 



