**5. Conclusion**

*Lactose and Lactose Derivatives*

**Figure 4.**

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**Figure 5.**

*Some of the microbial metabolic pathways for the synthesis of organic acids.*

The microbial bioprocesses could be enhanced through optimization of upand downstream processes that must be combined with metabolic engineering to increase productivity. Also, genetic engineering techniques could be used to obtain

*Successful commercial production of organic acids by microbial biotransformations: keys to success.*

Organic acids constitute a market with a sustained increase at present. Many of them are produced on a large scale by chemical synthesis from petroleum derivatives. Still, more recently, other alternatives, cheap and renewable sources of raw materials, are being intensively studied, among which is whey. This trend will be reinforced soon, which, together with the improvement of microbial processes, will allow more and more bioprocesses to appear at the large scale, which will become the trend of this market in the future. Among the countries whose territories contain the majority of the companies dedicated to supplying the world demand for organic acids, the People's Republic of China stands out, which is expected to continue to be the country that will dominate this market in the coming years.
