OverviewThe objectives of the project (3/2000 - 2/2003) for industrial, life science oriented marine product research are aiming at natural products to be used as leads and/or enzymes. Leads should be:

biochemically targeted at specific human, agrochemical or animal applications with minimal undesirable side effects,
relying on bio-sedimentary sources which are accessible, in a technical, economic and institutional sense, also for repeated scientific resampling and resupply,
also produced by cultivation or other methods of bioengineering. 
Further objectives are the study of cultivation opportunities in land laboratories but also in the ocean. Those studies should result in

a characterisation of bacteria and their secondary metabolites, structure elucidation, lead oriented multi-screening and bioassays,
a general evaluation of responsible uses of marine biodiversity by life science industries and of existing and forthcoming rules and regulations,
strategies of marine bioprospection on and in the seafloor. 
Application and adaptation of well proven methods of seafloor sampling and in-situ monitoring equipment and necessary new developments are further scientific and marine technology requirements. But also the logistics, the political and financial implications of bioprospecting microbenthic-bacterial communities are important subtasks. Last but not least the project should result in optimized search strategies: where to explore and analyze, how, and with whom, how to process samples, obtain and optimize cultivation conditions for lead identification in a cost effective and environmentally acceptable way, fast and reliable. Targeted "sampling of opportunity", in regional case studies, is being organized as well as dedicated sampling.
 
Read more...