Editorial

Marine biotechnology: basics and applications

This special issue contains full papers of both oral and

poster presentations of the international symposium

Marine Biotechnology: Basics and Applications that was

held in Matalascanas, Spain, 25 February/1 March2003.

Marine biotechnology is an exciting new area of

biotechnology. Due to the diversity in ocean life many

potentially interesting compounds are discovered (Fig.

1).

In 1998 we organized the conference Marine Biopro-

cess Engineering [1] in the Netherlands because we felt

that bioprocess engineering aspects did not receive

sufficient attention in the marine field. At that sympo-

sium we wanted to start to bridge the gap between the

isolation of products from marine organisms in the

laboratory and industrial applications. Bridging that

gap is still our drive. At the conference Marine

Biotechnology: Basics and Applications [2] we wanted

to do that by bringing together research and commercial

realization. The development of a marine biotechnolo-

gical product usually involves a chain of steps, starting

from the discovery of an interesting compound to the

marketing of the ultimate product developed from this

compound. The symposium focused on the relation

between applications of marine biotechnology and the

basic disciplines, i.e. screening, chemistry, genomics,

biology, process engineering, and product marketing.

We tried to compose a program in which both basics

and applications were covered and we aimed to have a

platform during the conference for good discussions

between industry and academia.

The conference was set up around three sessions

covering different marine organisms of interest: inverte-

brates and phototrophic and heterotrophic organisms.

For that reason an industrial session was organized. We

asked five companies to present their business and

especially to focus on the research needs that are

essential for commercialization of marine products.

On the third day of the symposium we left the

conference location for a lunch in the beautiful village

El Rocio followed by an excursion to the natural resort

Parque Donana. This break out preceded a brainstorm

session in the evening. In this brainstorm session

participants were divided in 12 groups and were asked

to dream of future research needs in marine biotechnol-

ogy. Very interesting discussions arose and some wild

dreams were developed, but mostly valuable research

ideas, were shared during that session. Results were

brought together and presented at the end of the

conference and a report of that is given in this special

issue.Our main purpose was to have a scientific conference

program of high quality in addition to intensive discus-

sions in which all delegates participated. We aimed to

have sufficient critical mass present. For that reason we

did select the conference location in Matalascanas,

where we were able to organize a conference with a

high quality/price ratio; in our opinion a prerequisite toattract many participants. We hosted 160 participants.

The manuscripts presented in this special issue give an

extensive overview of current research and applications

in marine biotechnology. We hope many new applica-

tions will follow in the future. We hope that all this will

stimulate the exploration of new bioproducts from the

ocean, but only in a sustainable way of exploitation of

these valuable resources.

The organizing committee of the international sym-

posium Marine Biotechnology: Basics and Applica-

Biomolecular Engineering 20 (2003) ix/x

www.elsevier.com/locate/geneanabioengIn total 34 oral presentations were given in these

sessions. In addition a poster session was organized

tions acknowledges with gratitude the following

organizations for financial support of this event: Anda-with in total 80 presentations. A few weeks before the

conference eight posters were selected from the poster

abstracts and the authors were asked to give a short oral

presentation about their work. The result of that was

that in the short presentations only the research goals

and conclusions could be given. The information given

was sufficient to provoke lively discussions afterwards.We intended to give extra attention to industrial

developments that are already commercially realized.

luca Turismo, ASL-IBERCEX, Ayuntamiento de Al-

monte, Centro Internacional de Estudios Convenciones

Ecologicas y Medioambientales (Ciecema), Elsevier

Science, Hucoa-Erloss, Instituto de Bioquimica Vegetal

y Fotosintesis of CSIC-University of Sevilla, INTA

(Centro de Experimentacion El Arenosillo), Ministerio

de Sciencia y Tecnologia of Spain, PharmaMar, Plan

Andaluz de Investigacion*/Junta de Andaluca, Raigal,The New Delta, Trends in Biotechnology, University of

1389-0344/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/S1389-0344(03)00031-5

Huelva*/Vicerrectorado de Estudiantes y RelacionesInstitucionales, Universidad Nacional de Educacion a

Distancia*/Centro Asociado de Huelva and Wagenin-gen University-Agrotechnology and Food Sciences.

In addition we would like to thank the following

people who served as the editorial board for the special

issue by reviewing the submitted manuscripts: Maria

Barbosa, Chris Battershill, Willem Brandenburg, Gra-

ham Bremer, Grant Burgess, Ricardo Guerrero, Russell

Hill, Marcel Janssen, Carlos Jmenez, Dominick Men-

dola, Emilio Molina Grima, Rosa Leon, Douglas

McKenzie,Werner Muller, Murray Munro, Peter Ni-

chols, Jan Olafsen, Miguel Olaizola, Ronald Osinga,

Shirley Pomponi, Clemens Posten, Joel Querellou, HansReith, Amos Richmond, Jorge Rocha, Gregory Rorrer,

Thomas Schweder, Detmer Sipkema, Lolke Sijtsma,

Hans Tramper, Mario Tredici, Iosune Uriz, Jose-Maria

Vega, Carlos Vlchez, Philip Wright and Rene Wijffels.

With the help of so many, we have been able to

organize the event. We were very happy that the

participants turned the international symposium Mar-

ine Biotechnology: Basics and Applications into a high-quality event, ultimately resulting in this special issue of

Biomolecular Engineering.

References

[1] Osinga R, Tramper J, Burgess JG, Wijffels RH. Marine Bioprocess

Engineering Journal of Biotechnology 1999;70:1/414.[2] Marine Biotechnology: Basics and Applications. Abstract issue

Biomolecular Engineering 2003;20(2):37/82.

Rene H. Wijffels, Maria Barbosa, Marcel Janssen,

Hedy S. Wessels, Johannes Tramper

Food and Bioprocess Engineering Group,

Wageningen University,

P.O. Box 8129,

6700 EV Wageningen,

Netherlands

E-mail address: rene.wijffels@wur.nl

Carlos Vlchez, Rosa Leon

University of Huelva,

Spain

Ida Akkerman

The New Delta,

Netherlands

Fig. 1. Marine biodiversity will result in promising new applications.

At the conference Marine Biotechnology: Basics and Applications a

bridge is made between basic research and new applications. Drawing:

Guido Wijffels (2002).

Editorialx

EditorialMarine biotechnology: basics and applicationsReferences