Harnessing marine microbes for drug discovery and sustainable production of fish and crops
Unlocking the potential of marine biodiversity
Funded through the EU Horizon 2020 programme, MARBLES will develop new methods for the sustainable collection and use of biological resources from marine environments and assess their commercial potential.
The marine environment remains a largely untapped and poorly understood source of natural products with potential for application in the pharmaceutical and food industries. Challenges include finding and identifying the bacteria and their molecules, extracting their active ingredients in a sustainable, effective way, and the commercial and regulatory difficulties of bringing a discovery from the lab to market. In the context of an increasing global population and the current climate and biodiversity crises, there is an urgent need to sustainably harness new compounds with pharmaceutical and nutritional applications. These are the issues that MARBLES will address.
ERINN Innovation is leader of WP7 – Dissemination, Communication, IP Protection, Knowledge Management & Transfer and Stakeholder Engagement. ERINN Innovation will also participate in WP6.
Funding: €7.5 million
Co-ordinator: Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands