Practice and Theory of Fermentation, Freeze Drying and Evaluation of Probiotic Efficiency of Lactobacillus Reuteri Strains
Praktik och teori för fermentation, frystorkning och utvärdering av probiotiska effekter av Lactobacillus reuteri stammar

KLG005F, 4 credits

Valid from: Autumn 2019
Decided by: Margareta Sandahl
Date of establishment: 2019-10-09

General Information

Division: Food Technology, Engineering, Nutrition
Course type: Third-cycle course
Teaching language: English

Aim

The aim of the course is to provide experience of a full production and evaluation cycle of a probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri strain.

Goals

Knowledge and Understanding

For a passing grade the doctoral student must

• Understand the basic principles of fermentation, freeze drying and biological assays for evaluation of probiotic efficiencies.
• Understand the principles of the various analytical evaluation systems that are applied.
• Understand the relationships the three steps: fermentation, freeze drying and biological evaluation.

Competences and Skills

For a passing grade the doctoral student must

• Quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate a full production sequence of a Lactobacillus reuteri product.
• Be able to evaluate the success of the operational steps of the production of probiotic by using and interpreting key techniques (flow cytometry and biological assays).
• Develop and improve the standard operational procedures (SOPs) used in a production and evaluation sequence.

Judgement and Approach

For a passing grade the doctoral student must

• Be able to critically analyse experimental results from the evaluation of a production of probiotics.
• Independently discuss the quality of the operations in the processing and evaluation chain and from this evaluation identify critical points as well as suggest improvements of the procedures and instructions.

Course Contents

This course is primarily designed for PhD students in Food and Formulation engineering and in Applied Microbiology. Particularly for students involved in projects related to Lacobacillus reuteri. Topics – Fermentation of Lactobacillus reuteri with the aim of producing cells. Evaluation of cell growth and cell condition. Freeze drying with an embedding matrix. Evaluation of the freeze drying involving methodologies for material testing. Evaluation of probiotic functionality of freeze-dried bacterial cells using various biological assays.

Course Literature

Min-Tze Liong (ed), "Probiotics: biology, genetics and health aspects", Springer, ISBN: 978-3-642-20837-9, Chapter 1, 4 and 6. ”Freeze drying of lactic acid bacterias” in Willem F. Wolkers (ed), Harriëtte Oldenhof (ed); ”Cryopreservation and Freeze-Drying Protocols”, Springer, ISBN: 978-1-4939-2192-8. Present SOPs describing laboratory procedures of the included operations.

Instruction Details

Type of instruction: Project. Practicals by following one cell production, freeze drying and probiotic evaluation cycle.

Examination Details

Examination format: Miscellaneous. Written material in form of an evaluation report of the production and suggestions to established or revised SOPs.
Grading scale: Failed, pass
Examiner:

Admission Details

Admission requirements: The student should be PhD student at in a relevant area.
Assumed prior knowledge: Required prior knowledge. The students are assumed to have basic knowledge in microbiology in general and in probiotics in particular.
Selection criteria: Students within the BCC program are prioritized.

Further Information

Course coordinator: Björn Bergenståhl Examiners: Björn Bergenståhl, Magnus Carlquist (TMB) och Sebastian Håkansson (SLU)

Course Occasion Information

Contact and Other Information

Course coordinator: Björn Bergenståhl <bjorn.bergenstahl@ple.lth.se>