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Goal 1. Biotechnology: Use Marine Biotechnology to Create and Enhance Products and Processes from Florida’s Coastal Resources
Marine biotechnology seeks to discover, develop and use products and processes from the living resources of the sea, apply biotechnological advances to protecting ocean resources and promote health and security as people interact with the ocean environment. Particularly through investigations at the cellular and molecular levels, scientists address very diverse subjects including bioactive compound characterization and synthesis, detection and remediation of coastal environmental contaminants, identification of ocean products, improvement of aquaculture practices and biomedical research using marine systems as models. In the words of the European Strategy for Marine Biotechnology, marine biotechnology is a scientifically fascinating and economically expanding enterprise which harnesses the enormous but uncharted gene pool and functional diversity of marine life toward finding new genes, organisms, biosensors, natural products and unusual biochemical processes of importance to industry, nutrition, medicine and the environment.
Florida’s overall biotechnology industry ranks 10 th in sales among all states nationally. The marine biotechnology business sector is equally small, with only a few aquatic-oriented companies identified in a recent Florida Sea Grant survey. In 2004 what may be the state’s first exclusively marine-focused bioproducts life science company was established. But Florida researchers are going beyond bioscience-oriented product development, with efforts to perfect cheaper and faster diagnostic procedures for coastal environmental, industrial and natural resource management applications. About 75 faculty in 10 universities are engaged in aspects of marine biotechnology. Some of their work is facilitated through a “virtual department” organized by Florida Sea Grant. The principal biosciences industry organization, BioFlorida, is encouraging of marine-related efforts.
National and perhaps world attention focused on Florida in 2003, with announcement of a blockbuster $500 million state and local package of incentives to create a Florida facility of The Scripps Research Institute ( San Diego, California). Partly as a result, out-of-state venture capitalists are expressing serious interest in Florida for the first time, in a climate of heightened energy for Florida biotechnology. Meanwhile, slightly earlier State Legislature establishment and creation of high technology initiatives in academia included formation of a $10 million Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology at Florida Atlantic University. The coastal and ocean research and education faculty of Florida’s universities and nonprofit laboratories are positioned for active participation in growth in this field, by virtue of some longstanding academic programs. One entity nurturing this trend has been Florida Sea Grant, which may support the largest marine biotechnology theme area of any Sea Grant program in the United States. One consequence has been the series of Florida Marine Biotechnology Summits, which have fostered networking and awareness for the state’s marine biotechnology sector.
The primary goals for this area are to develop marine bioproducts and sustainable sources of supply; promote human and ocean health, productivity and security; improve the health and production of marine organisms; and facilitate informed consumer, business and technical decisions. A final goal that crosses all these areas is to advance Florida marine biotechnology to a position of national leadership.
The collection of “marine biotechnologies” represented in this priority area reflects a wide diversity of users concerned with, among other things, fisheries, seafood production and aquaculture, with ecosystem conservation and environmental security, and harvest and synthesis of bioactive compounds for medicines, cosmetics and industry. Many of the small and large companies who will seek to develop opportunities are represented by BioFlorida (the states’ biosciences and biotechnology industry organization). Other users are governmental agencies concerned with managing or regulating life science industries or ecosystems, such as NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and the Food and Drug Administration, active partners in recent projects. Clearly, the audiences for this field extend well beyond Florida borders, as evidenced by the significant presence of out-of-state sponsors that provide matching funds to Florida Sea Grant research projects or have various agreements with Florida research groups for product screening, clinical trials or technology licensing.
Scientific information, trained students, technical practices and products result from research and education sponsored by Florida Sea Grant. Their incorporation by stakeholders may be through a job-hire, technology licensing or education, for example. Delivery of results is by principal investigators, technology offices on their campus, Florida Sea Grant media and the Florida Marine Biotechnology Summit series which in 2004 was held as an invited part of the BioFlorida statewide conference. As noted below, the exit strategy for a given project or effort is determined by attainment of carefully defined and measurable objectives.
Achieving these goals is measured by: graduation, placement and recognition of undergraduate and graduate students and their contribution of theses and dissertations; top-rank journal articles and other publications reporting all aspects of research findings, as contributions both to the scholarly literature and to stakeholders able to apply findings; patents and technology licensing agreements; establishment of entire new companies or addition of product-lines or industrial processes at existing firms; development and adoption of scientific practices for monitoring and detection of constituents in ocean-derived products and ocean ecosystems; publications and other communication media and educational events that are requested or actively used by lay and technical stakeholders; and investments and partnerships established to develop short and long-term objectives in Florida marine biotechnology.
A. Develop marine bioproducts and sustainable sources of supply
- Develop either biological routes for synthesis, or culture procedures for production of compounds of commercial, health and environmental importance, such as small molecules or enzymes.
- Determine the mode of action and properties of compounds derived and isolated from marine organisms and with apparent or preferably defined applications in medicine, non-toxic control of biofouling or corrosion, and other commercial and industrial applications.
- Create novel methods for marine by-products utilization in situations where demand can be established reasonably.
- Isolate, identify and determine the function of enzymes controlling processes of potential or preferably characterized commercial benefit.
B. Promote human and oceans health, productivity and security
- Develop cost-effective diagnostic tools including chemo and biosensors for assessment of seafood contaminants and water-borne pathogens and pollutants and improved evaluation and prediction of human and environmental health risks.
- Develop forensic and monitoring practices for taxonomic identification in situations including possible economic or natural resource management fraud involving either seafood products or marine species of endangered/threatened status, for consumer, business, conservation and regulatory applications.
- Develop habitat restoration and remediation techniques, using molecular and cellular approaches for improvement of coastal plant strains, hybrid development and production technology for coastal emergent and aquatic vegetation and improvement of methods for microbial remediation of polluted environments.
C. Improve health and production of marine organisms
- Promote the health of sustainably cultured and collected captive marine plant and animal species of economic importance through attention to pathogens, diagnostics, treatments, drug delivery systems, immunology, physiology and pharmacology, to positively affect growth rate, disease resistance, survivorship and reproduction.
- Develop technology to culture cells of marine organisms with desirable properties to produce useful biochemicals such as enzymes, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals for which economical supply is required.
D. Facilitate informed consumer, business and technical decisions
- Identify and act upon economic, social, ethical and regulatory issues, constraints and opportunities to further the development of marine biotechnology for viable commercial and environmental management applications.
- Train students in technical subjects in areas of reasonably demonstrated employment opportunity and promote scientific/education career opportunities in order to retain Florida-trained students in the state.
- Extend research results to industry, media, specific audiences and the public to explain opportunities and issues related to the responsible, sustainable application of marine biotechnology.
Florida Sea Grant will not sponsor expeditions, explorations or laboratory programs for mass screening and discovery of novel biologically active compounds. Consistent with the two-year nature of its research grants, it will not engage in clinical trial-related medical studies that require many years and orders of magnitude higher levels of funding.
Florida Sea Grant will reach beyond academia to engage industry and governmental interests that may not realize the opportunities held by marine biotechnology. FSG also will reach beyond its state borders at a time when other Sea Grant programs are less vigorous in this theme area, in order to engage national corporations and federal agencies as partners. Development of long-term stable funding will require persistence and creativity.
Florida Sea Grant offers a means of organizing a strategically planned and coordinated approach to marine biotechnology research, development and education, whereby the whole may be greater than the sum of the parts. As new funds can be realized, these capabilities can be further developed to help Florida garner the full effects of worldwide markets and a clean, high-wages enterprise.
Florida has a rightful and perhaps advantageous place in the worldwide quest to discover new products and processes from the ocean’s living resources. With an enormous natural storehouse of biodiversity and an extensive university-based network of scientific talent, Florida boasts strengths for developing new medicines, industrial products, methods of detecting contaminants and practices for restoring damaged environments, all adapted or derived from coastal and ocean systems. Florida Sea Grant is providing leadership to set the key priorities for this emerging field known as Marine Biotechnology and requires funding above and beyond what may be available from Sea Grant for just a few annual research projects and from the university for staff support that also is spread over other theme areas.
To properly exercise the statewide leadership—and emerging national prominence—that Florida Sea Grant has demonstrated, sufficient funding is required for staff and operations in three areas: 1) research funding from external sources for use in a matching capacity to leverage larger grants, including Sea Grant funds and for pilot studies to generate data to build a case for longer term investigations; 2) student funding, particularly at the graduate level, to support both research assistantships and for activities such as travel for conference presentations; and 3) a new faculty outreach/extension and program development position to properly coordinate the overall Florida Sea Grant research effort and ongoing activities such as the summit (especially if it becomes an annual event) and the statewide “virtual department” that FSG has brought into existence. The feasibility of re-energizing previous State Legislative opportunities for funding should be determined. With the advances in Florida’s overall biotechnology sector in the last few years, new opportunities for state and national support should be identifiable.
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