A parallel study on bacterial growth and inactivation

Pure stochastic birth process models are used to establish the connection b etween the traditional food microbiology concept of bacterial lag period, b efore the exponential growth, and the distribution of the lag times of indi vidual cells. In a parallel way, similar study is carried out on the connec tion between the "shoulder" period, before the exponential decay, and the d istribution of the survival ti:mes of individual cells. Formulae are derive d to calculate the parameters of the growth/survival curves from the distri butions of the respective parameters of individual cells. It is shown that, in some aspects, analogy, in some aspects fundamental difference exists be tween growth and survival modelling. (C) 2001 Academic Press.