SeaBioTech is a 48-month project designed and driven by SMEs to create innovative marine biodiscovery pipelines as a means to convert the potential of marine biotechnology into novel industrial products for the pharmaceutical (human and aquaculture), cosmetic, functional food and industrial chemistry sectors. SeaBioTech will reduce barriers to successful industrial exploitation of marine biodiversity for companies more accustomed to 'terrestrial' biotechnology. SeaBioTech directly addresses five key challenges to remove bottlenecks in the marine biodiscovery pipeline, leading to (1) improvements in the quality of marine resources available for biotechnological exploitation, (2) improvement in technical aspects of the biodiscovery pipeline to shorten time to market, and (3) developing sustainable modes of supply of raw materials for industry. The two last challenges center on enabling activities to enhance the marine biodiscovery process: first, clarification of legal aspects to facilitate access to marine resources, their sustainable use, and their secure exploitation; second, to create an improved framework for access to marine biotechnology data and research materials. To achieve its goals, SeaBioTech brings together complementary and world-leading experts, integrating biology, genomics, natural product chemistry, bioactivity testing, industrial bioprocessing, legal aspects, market analysis and knowledge exchange. The expertise assembled within the consortium reflects the industry-defined needs, from the SME partners' initial definition of market and product opportunities to their ultimate proof-of-concept demonstration activities. SeaBioTech will have significant impact on research and technology, on innovation, on European competitiveness and on economic growth. It will provide a model to accelerate the development of European biotechnology into a world leading position.
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Fishmeal replacement with a mixture of plant protein (PP) raw materials (soy, wheat gluten meal, corn gluten meal and rapeseed meal) in diets for 300-950 g turbot was tested. Eight different diets with fishmeal protein stepwise varying from 53.7% of crude protein (CP) to 93% of CP of the total protein in the diet were tested. The fish was weighed at monthly intervals for following weight development and calculation of specific growth rates, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio. At the end of the experiment, fish was sampled for sensory evaluation. Average final weight was 950 g and did not vary between the experimental groups. There were no effects of dietary treatment on specific growth rates, daily feed intake, feed conversion ratio or sensory attributes measured. The least-cost diet (with 53.7% fishmeal protein) is about 12% lower in raw material cost (based on material price of diet components) than the all fishmeal diet. The results therefore indicate that the raw material cost in feed for on-growing turbot can be reduced considerably without any negative effect on growth and feed utilization.
An interlaboratory study of five laboratories testing real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with TaqMan probe detection of black seabream (Spondyliosoma cantharus) fish is presented in this work. The method is oriented to the intron of the nuclear gene encoding the main protein of the musculature of the fish, parvalbumin. This feature distinguishes the employed approach from those based on mitochondrial genes. Here, the intron is flanked by exon stretches highly conserved among species. This provides a unique advantage when a new fish species emerges as a commodity on the market: Species-versatile degenerate primers can be easily designed on these conserved exon stretches. Therefore, the initial uncertainty of the species-specific sequence of the intron can, in such case, be bypassed during the adoption of the method to this particular new species, because the amplicon obtained at this pilot stage provides the sequence of the intron itself. DNA isolates from eight specimens of S. cantharus and from nineteen other fish species, the latter being used as negative controls, were tested in this study by participating laboratories. The readouts in qualitative assessment were 100% accurate. The quantitative results provided an average value and variation among samples representing particular examples of S. cantharus