Abstract:

Marine (‘Blue’) biotechnology is the only ‘colour’ of biotechnology that is defined by its source rather than by function. As such, it may find use in any number of applications in the food, energy, health, environment and industrial sectors. This presentation will explore the challenges and opportunities facing marine biotechnology and how to realise its potential to make a major contribution to all these sectors in Europe and globally.

To achieve this, a number of ‘Grand Challenges’ in marine biotechnology need to be addressed in the fields of food, energy, health, environment and industry. Changes in policy, science funding, science administration, and education must be made to fully exploit the unique bioresources available in the oceans.

This presentation will begin by addressing the technical challenges which need to be solved to streamline the marine biodiscovery pipeline: quality of marine bioresources; proceeding from extract to pure bioactive compound; the supply issue and commercialization. Approaches to each of these will be discussed giving recent examples from our research centre and that of others. Policy issues that need to be solved at a European and global level will also be introduced. The presentation will end with a horizon scan of emerging technologies that may be essential to attract industry to use marine bioresources for biomedical and biotechnological applications.