MARINE BIOPROSPECTING IN TROMSØ

Marine bioprospecting may be defined as the search for bioactive molecules and compounds from marine sources having new, unique properties and the potential for commercial applications. Amongst others, applications include medicines, food and feed, textiles, cosmetics and the process industry.

The Barents Sea, where temperate waters from the Gulf Stream and cold waters from the Arctic meet, is home to an enormous diversity of organisms, which are well adapted to the extreme conditions of their marine habitats. This makes these arctic species very attractive for marine bioprospecting.

The Norwegian government strategically supports the development of marine bioprospecting as it has the potential to contribute to new and sustainable wealth creation. Tromsø and the northern areas play a central role in this strategy due to excellent access to unique Arctic marine organisms and the presence of marine industries and R&D competence and infrastructure in this region.

Since 2007 science and industry have cooperated closely within Mabcent-SFI on bioprospecting and the development and commercialization of new products.

MabCent-SFI 
MabCent-SFI is one of fourteen Research-Based Innovation Centers initiated by the Research Council of Norway, and is the only one within the field of “bioactive compounds and drug discovery” that is based on bioactives from marine organisms. MabCent-SFI maintains a focus on bioactives from Arctic and sub-Arctic organisms. By the end of 2011, MabCent has tested about 200,000 extracts, finding several hundred "hits".  Through further research and development, some of these hits will become valuable "leads", i.e. characterized compounds known to possess biological effects of interest.

The commercial partners in MabCent-SFI are Biotec Pharmacon ASA and its subsidiary ArcticZymes AS, ABC BioScience AS, Lytix Biopharma AS and Pronova BioPharma ASA.  ArcticZymes is also a partner in MARZymes, a project financed by the Research Council of Norway to find marine enzymes which are adapted to the extreme conditions in the Arctic.  

The science partners in MabCent-SFI are Marbank, a national marine biobank located in Tromsø, Marbio, a medium/high-throughput platform for screening and identification of bioactive compounds and Norstruct, a protein structure determination platform.

Mabcent-SFI is hosted by the University of Tromsø.