Innovation from the sea: Jacobs University coordinates EU project in blue biotechnology
On February 1, a new EU project to make huge amount of data from marine microorganisms available for research and biotechnological applications will be officially launched at Jacobs University with a three-day meeting. The Micro B3 project – the name stands for microbial biodiversity, bioinformatics and biotechnology – is financed by the EU with a total of € 9 million for a period of four years.
The project’s main objectives are to create an integrative database, which is open to researchers worldwide and features many innovative tools for data analysis, and to develop a legal framework for genome-based environmental research. New biotechnological applications will also be identified.
32 partner institutions from 14 countries are participating in the project, which unites leading experts from eight disciplines and is coordinated by Frank Oliver Glöckner, Professor of Bioinformatics at Jacobs University.
Modern biotechnological processes, which utilize or modify genetic information, have been in use for many years. Their main areas of usage lie within agriculture, medical or pharmaceutical applications, and the food industry. The so-called “blue biotechnology”, which uses genetic information of marine organisms for biotechnology, is still considered new terrain: Only 1% of all biotechnology companies worldwide use marine ecosystem knowledge as a source (e.g. for innovative enzymatic functions).
The potential of blue biotechnology, however, is huge, since life in marine habitats and especially microbial communities shows an enormous biodiversity and thus a genetic diversity, which largely exceeds that of most terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, this diversity has hardly been explored.
Today’s sequencing technologies allow marine scientists to analyze large numbers of samples in a short time. Hence Europe’s many marine research institutions have already collected an enormous quantity of genetic data, combined with ecological information on the environmental living conditions of these organisms.
Started at the beginning of the year, the Micro B3 project will make this ‘data treasure trove’ (especially information on marine viral, bacterial, archaeal and protists genomes and metagenomes) accessible to researchers worldwide via an integrative database that also provides for novel evaluation and visualization opportunities. Under the lead of Jacobs University, 32 academic and industrial partners have teamed up to form an interdisciplinary consortium comprising world-leading experts in bioinformatics, computer science, biology, ecology, oceanography, bioprospecting, biotechnology, ethics and law.
“We aim to develop an innovative, transparent and user-friendly open-access system, which will allow for seamless processing, integration, visualization, and accessibility of the huge amount of data, that is collected in ongoing sampling campaigns and long-term observations,” says Frank Oliver Glöckner, Professor of Bioinformatics at Jacobs University and Micro B3 project coordinator.
“We are also planning to offer analytical and feedback tools on our platform. This is unique in terms of integrating genetic and ecological information and will generate collective knowledge, which will in turn offer new perspectives for the modeling and exploration of marine microbial communities,” Glöckner explains.
Furthermore, the Micro B3 project aims to identify gene sequences of microorganisms, which are particularly suited for use in blue biotechnology, and to design experiments to clarify the function of yet-unknown genes. “This is an area of research with incredible commercial potential - be it in the pharmaceutical industry, material sciences, industrial biotechnology and the food industry. Hence we have to make sure right from the start that a legal framework is set up to determine who is allowed to utilize our collectively generated data and how it is being used,” adds Glöckner. “It's not an easy task and therefore educating, training and outreach are crucial parts of the project.”
The Micro B3 project is officially launched with a kick-off meeting from February 1 to 3, 2012 at Jacobs University. Around 70 participating scientists from 14 countries are expected at the meeting.
More info under www.microb3.eu
For a full list of all project partners, please visit: www.microb3.eu/partners
For further information, please contact:
Frank Oliver Glöckner, Professor of Bioinformatics
Tel: +49 421 200-3167 | E-Mail: f.gloeckner@jacobs-university.de
