Als Friedrich Bayer und Johann Friedrich Weskott den Grundstein für den heutigen Bayer‐Konzern legten, drehte sich alles um synthetische Farbstoffe. Doch der Steinkohlenteer auf dem diese basierten, bot noch weitere Anwendungsmöglichkeiten: von Pflanzenschutzwirkstoffen über fiebersenkende Arzneimittel bis hin zu Krebsmedikamenten. Anhand beispielhafter chemischer Verbindungen und ihrer Entwicklungsgeschichte – von den Anfängen bis heute – wird die Unternehmenshistorie von Bayer veranschaulicht.

Incidents with single cells and their genesis have not been the major focus of science up to now. This fact is supported by the difficulties one faces when wanting to monitor and cultivate small populations of cells in a defined compartment under controlled conditions, in vitro. Several approaches of up- and down-scaling have often led to poorly understood results which might be better elucidated by understanding the cellular genesis as a function of its microenvironment. This review of the approaches of scale-up and scale-down processes illustrates technical possibilities and shows up their limitations with regard to obtainable data for the characterisation of cellular genesis and impact of the cellular microenvironment. For example, stem cell research advances underline the lack of information about the impact of the microenvironment on cellular development. Finally, a proposal of future research efforts is given on how to overcome this lack of data via a novel bioreactor setup.

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