Agar is produced from Gracilaria Seaweed. it has a wide variety of uses. It is employed in the bakery, confectionery, dairy industries and meat packing; in pharmaceuticals; in biomedical and other fields.

In food industry. The application of agar in the preparation or manufacture of human food is guaranteed in its safety by more than three hundred years of continuous use by some countries. The World Health Organization permits agar for use in the human food industry and it has also been accepted and authorized by the regulations of various countries including the U.K., Germany, U.S.S.R., France and Poland. The FDA of the United States assigns the agar a grading of GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe).

Pharmaceutical Uses. Microbiological culture medium: Agar is most valuable in microbiology being used as the culture medium for practically all pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. Agar is not easy to metabolize and has good gel firmness, elasticity, clarity and stability. None of the pathogenic bacteria is known to digest agar. Usually 1.2–1.5% agar is used for this purpose. About one-sixth of all the agar in the U.S.A. is normally used for culture medium. Dental impression materials: In prosthetic dentistry it is necessary to make accurate casts of intricate undercut objects. Agar, mixed with other substances, serves as the ideal dental impression material since it makes it to make better and more precise reproductions. The concentration of agar in the impression material is up to 13–17%. Nowaday agar encounters competition from alginate in the use of dental impression material.

Biomedical applications of agarose. Agarose is widely used in biomedicine and biotechnology. Electrophoresis: Agar gel electrophoretic media have been used for many years to separate and identify serum and spinal fluid proteins and other biological mixtures, facilitating the diagnosis of illnesses of patients. Chromatography: Columns of agarose gel particles sold under such tradenames as Sepharose (Pharmacia) and Bio-Gel A (Bio-Rad) are extensively used as media for molecular weight separations, e.g. for the molecules greater than 250,000 daltons, and for separation of artificial mixtures of proteins and viruses, and of ribosomes. Immunology: The application of agarose in immunology is extensive. Immobilized enzymes and cells: Agarose plays an important role as a biologically inert carrier to which enzymes or cells are bound or introduced during gel formation or by subsequent diffusion and then insolubilization. Meanwhile, new applications in biotechnology are continuing.