Microbiome Research Will Accelerate The Blue Biotechnology Industry .
... Microbiome research will accelerate developments in the blue biotechnology industry. Only a tiny fraction of marine microorganisms can be cultured and tested for bioactive compounds in labs, but microbiome research uses next-generation sequencing to simply capture the genetic sequences of marine organisms. This is much easier than finding the exact conditions required to grow the microorganisms in the lab.
The genetic sequences can be analyzed for putative or known function of different genes. This process generates huge amounts of data that can be mined for genes that produce natural products of interest. In its infancy, the global blue biotechnology market could reach almost $5 billion by next year, with this projection excluding the potential discoveries from microbiome research.
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