Prospect of marine biology development

In recent 10 years, due to the increasingly prominent strategic position of the ocean in the sustainable development of coastal countries and the deepening understanding of the particularity of the marine environment and the characteristics of marine biodiversity, the multi-level development and utilization of marine biological resources has greatly promoted the rapid development of marine biotechnology research and application. 1989 when the first international conference on marine biotechnology (hereinafter referred to as MPS conference) was held in Japan, only a few dozen people attended, while 1997 when the fourth IMBC conference was held in Italy, the number of participants reached 1000. Now the IMBC conference has become an important symbol of the development of global marine biotechnology, and there has been a hot situation. The IMBC 2000 Olympic Games has just opened in Australia, and the preparations for the IMBC 2003 Olympic Games have already started in Japan. Japan made pre-publicity for hosting the IMBC 2006 Olympic Games and won the right to host it. IMBC, which is held every three years, not only attracts many high-level experts and scholars to show and exchange research results, but also explores new research and development directions, which greatly promotes the development process of regional marine biotechnology research. Regional academic exchange organizations have been established in all continents, such as Asia-Pacific Marine Biotechnology Society, European Marine Biotechnology Society and Pan-American Marine Biotechnology Association. Many countries have also established many research centers, among which the famous ones are the Marine Biotechnology Center of the University of Maryland, the Marine Biotechnology and Environment Center of the University of California, San Diego, the Marine Biotechnology Center of the University of Connecticut, the International Research Center of Marine Molecular Biology of Belgen University, and the Japanese Institute of Marine Biotechnology. These academic organizations or research centers hold various seminars or working group meetings to study and discuss marine biotechnology with regional characteristics. From 65438 to 0998, with the support of the European Society of Marine Biotechnology, the Japanese Society of Marine Biotechnology and the Pan-American Association of Marine Biotechnology, the original Journal of Marine Biotechnology and Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology were jointly published as the Journal of Marine Biotechnology (hereinafter referred to as MB T), which has now become an international authoritative publication. As a new subject field, marine biotechnology has been clearly defined as "molecular biology of marine organisms such as cell biology and other technical applications". In order to adapt to this rapid development situation, the United States, Japan, Australia and other developed countries have successively formulated national development plans, and identified marine biotechnology research as the priority development field in 2 1 century. From 65438 to 0996, China also lost no time in bringing marine biotechnology into the national high-tech research and development plan (863 plan), which laid the foundation for future development. It goes without saying that up to now, marine biotechnology has not only become a new research field of the cross development of marine science and biotechnology, but also an important part of the scientific and technological development of all countries in the world in the 2 1 century, and will show strong development momentum and great application potential. The data listed in 1. table 1 and table 2 generally reflect the main characteristics of current marine biotechnology research and development. 1. 1 Strengthening basic biological research is an important cornerstone to promote the research and development of marine biotechnology, which covers a wide range, such as molecular biology, cell biology, developmental biology, reproductive biology, genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, biodiversity and marine ecology. In order to make its development have a solid foundation, researchers attach great importance to related basic research. During the IMBC 2000 conference, when the author asked a senior participant: What is the main progress of this conference? He replied without hesitation: the research results of molecular biology level have increased. That's true. Statistics of recent research results show that the basic research of marine biotechnology focuses more on the molecular level, such as gene expression, molecular cloning, genomics, molecular markers, marine biomolecules, substance activities and their compounds. These guiding basic research will have an important impact on future development. 1.2 Promoting traditional industries is the main aspect of marine biotechnology application. At present, the application of marine biotechnology to promote the development of marine industry mainly focuses on aquaculture and the development of marine natural products, which is also a strong driving force for the research and development of marine biotechnology. The reason for being energetic. In aquaculture, encouraging progress has been made in improving the reproduction, development, growth and health of important aquaculture species, especially in cultivating excellent characters of varieties and improving disease resistance, such as cultivating growth hormone transgenic fish, polyploid breeding of shellfish, sex control of fish and crustaceans, disease detection and prevention, DNA vaccine and nutritional fortification. In the development of marine natural products, the latest principles and methods of biotechnology are used to develop and separate the active substances of marine organisms, determine the molecular composition and structure, biosynthetic mode and test the biological activity, which has obviously promoted the industrialization development of a new generation of marine biological products and chemicals such as new drugs, enzymes, polymer materials and diagnostic reagents. Table 1 Main Contents of Recent IMBC Meetings Table 2 Statistics of Recent IMBC Meetings and Journal of Marine Biotechnology 1.3 Ensuring the sustainable utilization of marine environment is another important aspect of marine biotechnology research and application. Using biotechnology to protect the marine environment, control pollution and make the biological production process of marine ecosystem more effective is a relatively new application and development field. Therefore, it is a relatively new application and development field from the perspective of technological development and industrial development. At present, the research involved mainly includes bioremediation (such as biodegradation and enrichment, technology of fixing toxic substances, etc. ), anti-bioadhesion, ecotoxicology, environmental adaptation and * * * hygiene. The countries concerned regard "bioremediation" as an important bioengineering means to protect the marine ecological environment and the sustainable development of the marine industry. The United States and Canada have jointly formulated a plan for bioremediation of marine environment to promote the application and development of this technology. 1.4 The marine policy related to the development of marine biotechnology has always attracted public attention, among which the development strategy, patent protection, importance of marine biotechnology to aquaculture development, safety and control of genetically modified species, relationship between marine biotechnology and biodiversity, and formulation and implementation of marine environmental protection have attracted much attention. 2. Key development fields At present, the key research and development fields of international marine biotechnology mainly include the following aspects: 2. 1 Biological basis of development and reproduction. Understanding the physiological process and molecular regulation mechanism of embryo development, metamorphosis, maturation and reproduction of marine organisms is not only of great scientific significance to clarify the molecular regulation law of growth, development and reproduction of marine organisms, but also of great significance to apply biotechnology to promote the growth and development of organisms and regulate their reproductive activities, and improve the quality and yield of aquaculture. Therefore, this research is one of the research hotspots in the field of marine biotechnology in recent years. It mainly includes gene identification, cloning and expression analysis of growth hormone, growth factor, thyroid hormone receptor, gonadotropin, gonadotropin releasing hormone, growth-prolactin hormone, osmotic pressure regulating hormone, reproductive inhibition factor, oocyte final maturation inducing factor, sex determining factor and sex-specific gene, as well as cell culture and directional differentiation of fish embryos. 2.2 Genomics and Gene Transfer With the implementation of the Global Genome Project, especially the Human Genome Project, the research on structural genomes and functional genomes of various organisms has become the focus of life sciences, and the research on marine biological genomes, especially functional genomes, has naturally become a new hotspot for marine biologists. At present, the research focuses on the complete sequence determination of representative marine organisms (including fish, shrimp, shellfish, pathogenic microorganisms and viruses), as well as the cloning and functional analysis of specific functional genes, such as drug genes, enzyme genes, hormone polypeptide genes, disease resistance genes, salt tolerance genes and so on. On this basis, gene transfer, as an effective technical means to genetically improve marine organisms and cultivate excellent varieties with rapid growth and strong stress resistance, has become the focus of applied technology research and development in this field. In recent years, the research mainly focuses on the screening of target genes, such as disease resistance gene, insulin-like growth factor gene and green fluorescent protein gene. Large-scale and efficient transgenic methods are also the key aspects of gene transfer research. Besides traditional microinjection, gene gun and sperm carrying, retrovirus-mediated method, electroporation method, transposon-mediated method and embryonic cell-mediated method have also been developed. 2.3 Pathogenic Biology and Immunity With the gradual deterioration of the marine environment and the large-scale development of mariculture, the disease problem has become one of the bottleneck factors restricting the development of mariculture in the world. It is the basis of developing effective control technology to study the pathogenic mechanism, transmission route and interaction with host of pathogenic organisms (such as bacteria and viruses). At the same time, it is of great significance to carry out molecular immunology and immunogenetics research on marine aquaculture and understand the immune mechanism of marine fish, shrimp and shellfish for cultivating disease-resistant aquaculture varieties and effectively preventing and controlling aquaculture diseases. Therefore, pathogenic biology and immunity have become one of the key research fields of marine biotechnology at present, mainly focusing on the screening and cloning of genes related to pathogenic microorganisms, genes related to disease resistance of marine organisms, the establishment of marine invertebrate cell lines, the discussion of immune mechanism of marine organisms, and the development of DNA vaccines. 2.4 The separation and utilization of biological activity and its products, marine bioactive substances, is another research hotspot of marine biotechnology. Modern research shows that unique compounds exist widely in various marine organisms to protect themselves from living in the ocean. The active substances of different marine organisms show great application potential in biomedicine and disease prevention. For example, sponge is an important resource for separating natural medicines. In addition, some marine microorganisms have the functions of high and low temperature tolerance, high pressure tolerance, high salt tolerance and low nutrition. It is possible to obtain new natural products that cannot be obtained on land by researching and developing these marine extreme microorganisms with special functions. Therefore, the study of extremophiles has become the focus of marine biotechnology research in recent years. The research focus in this field includes anti-tumor drugs, industrial enzymes and other special enzymes, screening of specific functional genes in extremophiles, antibacterial active substances, anti-reproductive drugs, immune enhancers, antioxidants and industrial production. 2.5 Marine Environmental Biotechnology The research focus in this field is the development and application of marine bioremediation technology. Bioremediation technology is a kind of marine environmental biotechnology, and its meaning is broader than biodegradation, with biodegradation as the core. Its methods include using organisms or their products to degrade pollutants, reduce toxicity or convert them into non-toxic products, enrich and fix toxic substances (including heavy metals), and large-scale bioremediation also includes ecological adjustment in the ecosystem. The application fields include large-scale aquaculture and industrial aquaculture, oil pollution, heavy metal pollution, urban sewage discharge and other marine waste (water) treatment. At present, the dynamic mechanism of microbial reaction to environment, biochemical mechanism of degradation process, biosensor, biological relationship and mutual benefit mechanism between marine microorganisms and other organisms, and separation and purification of anti-adhesion substances are important research contents in this field.