Marine Biotechnology Introduction

1. Marine BiotechnologyIntroduction Tahir A. Baig

2. What is MARINE Biotechnology? • The most recent definition considers marine (or blue) biotechnology as "exploration of the capabilities of marine organisms at the whole, cell, or molecular level, to provide solutions to today's problems, with the use of technology to advance the understanding and accessibility of marine biological material.“ • Improving the production of marine organisms: • Culture and management of marine organisms. • Main applications include the development and the production of healthcare products for farmed fish (preventives and therapeutics), • The development of new and/or improved breeds of farmed fish and biotechnology based reproduction technologies. • Fish health: • The development of fish vaccines and molecular diagnostics for diseases are probably the most promising applications in this field. • The international market for fish vaccines has been estimated at €60 million, dominated now by large healthcare companies

3. Fish breeding and stock management: • Selective breeding is a recent activity in aquaculture (fish and molluscs) which therefore holds great promise for genetic enhancement programes. • The use of molecular markers for enhancing selective breeding is an even newer activity, which is expected to be crucial for the development of disease resistant strains, strains with improved feed efficiency and strains with improved product quality • Genetically engineered marine organisms • Genetic engineering is considered to have significant potential to enhance aquaculture through the use of recombinant DNA techniques that would yield faster-growing and/or disease-resistant varieties of fish or mollusks.

4. 2. Manufacture of pharmaceuticals and n utraceuticals • Chemicals produced by or found in marine organisms have been shown to have a wide variety of applications as pharmaceuticals for humans and other animals. Uses have included antibacterial, and antiviral and anti-tumor agents. Particular attention has been paid to a variety of toxins formed by marine organisms. Nutraceuticals constitute a variety of substances used in the food supplement and “natural health” markets. • 3. Industrial Chemicals • Marine organisms are the source of a variety of chemicals used in industrial processes. • The best-known example is carageen an, extracted from seaweed and used as a thickener in ice cream and other foods and as a laboratory culture medium. • A variety of other chemicals used both in food processing and other manufacturing processes have also been developed from marine resources.

5. 4. Bio fouling • Fouling of man-made structures, such as boats and piers, is a constant threat to a number of man’s uses of the ocean. • Inorganic chemicals (such as copper) have traditionally been used to limit biofouling, a number of marine organisms, including bacteria, are being studied for use in anti-fouling applications. • Anti-fouling products that can be extracted e.g. from the mucus of fish and starfish prevent sessile marine organisms such as barnacles from attaching to boats, piers and other submerged manmade structures are examples. • 5. Marine Pollution Control • The use of marine organisms to degrade pollutants introduced to the marine environment is considered feasible in numerous applications. • Bacterial treatment of human waste is already common, and other wastes such as halogenated compounds have been shown to be susceptible to degradation by microorganisms. There has also been substantial research in using bacteria to degrade spilled oil.

7. MARINE BIOPROSPECTING • Marine bioprospecting' is often used to describe the process of collecting marine biota for natural product screening“ • Traditionally only 1 out of 10,000-20,000 molecules extracted from terrestrial microorganisms, plants or animals finally reached the market, which may take 10-15 years and cost up to $800m. • This has resulted in large pharmaceutical groups abandoning their search for new drugs derived from natural substances. • Marine biota presents a better opportunity for encountering successful candidates in view of the large biodiversity, lack of current knowledge and extreme environments. • Anti-cancer agents from marine organisms have an estimated value of $ 1 billion a year. • Another good example includes Vent-DNA polymerase which is used as a basic constituent in Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).

8. Bioprospecting is applied to all animal and plant phyla living in shallow as well as in deep seabed ecosystems. • The advantages of the first include less technical complexity and better economic viability whereas for the latter a larger and perhaps more interesting natural resource base. • In general, it is thought that the pace of discovery of new species and products that are potentially useful to pharmacology is higher for marine and microbial than for terrestrial organisms.