Better together or single by choice: Challenges and opportunities in engineering microbial consortia for industrial biomanufacturing applications

In this tandem presentation, the authors highlight new opportunities and current challenges of pure and mixed microbial culture fermentations. Results and practical examples are given as part of on-going research in butanol production and keratin degradation. Specific advantges of each process are contrasted with typical bottlenecks. The authors provide a decision framework for using either technology based on some key parameters of the target application.