The global economy for products composed of biological materials is likely to grow 3.6% between now and 2025. This in response to serious environmental challenges the world will face. Such products have enormous potential to provide solutions to global challenges like food security, energy production, human health, and waste reduction. This economic growth may strongly benefit from organisms that come from the sea. For example, scientists estimate that marine microorganisms have 100-times higher potential for developing anti-tumour drugs than those on the ground, simply because of the higher natural biodiversity.
Today’s technology has enabled scientists to generate a spectacular vision of the marine microbial world. Industry uses these microbes and their products (chemicals and enzymes) because they can lead to lower production costs or get to market quickly. This is vital for compounds under price pressure such as fine chemicals and pharmaceutical compounds. For example, Yondelis is an anti-tumour agent derived from Caribbean sea squirt Ecteinascidia turbinate. Other examples include proteins Cpn10 and Cpn60, isolated from marine psychrophilic bacterium Oleispira antarctica, used to extract enzymes necessary for industrial processes like beer fermentation or the bleaching of paper products. However, few companies can undertake the costs and risks involved for this kind of research.
