The Global Challenge of Marine Biotechnology

Book excerpt: In 1966 Congress passed the National Sea Grant College Program Act to promote marine research, education, and extension services in institutions along the nation's ocean and Great Lakes coasts. In Maryland a Sea Grant Program -- a partnership among federal and state governments, universities, and industries -- began in 1977, and in 1982 the University of Maryland was named the nation's seventeenth Sea Grant College.The Maryland Sea Grant College focuses its efforts on the Chesapeake Bay, with emphasis on the marine concerns of fisheries, seafood technology, and environmental quality.This report addresses the emerging science and developing technologies encompassed by marine biotechnology. It contains a broad overview of marine biotechnology, sets forth industrial realities, and assesses the future potential of this new field of biotechnology.The report has eight chapters. The first contains a wide range of major scientific achievements in marine biotechnology. The subjects encompassed within marine biotechnology are grouped within six areas: aquaculture, marine animal health, marine natural health, marine natural products, biofilm and bioadhesion in the marine environment, bioremediation, and marine ecology and biological oceanography. The remaining chapters detail an extensive survey and status report on marine biotechnology in the United States, Japan, Australia, and Norway.