Biotechnology prospecting doesn't just happen in the tropics, says David Leary of the UN University Institute of Advanced Studies. The unique adaptations required for survival in the Arctic may also offer useful insights to humans.
Bob Weber of The Canadian Press reports on a new report by Leary (Bioprospecting in the Arctic) and on a presentation Leary's going to give tomorrow at a UN conference in Iceland: Arctic genetics increasingly valuable to international biotechnology industry:
Most of the activity so far has focused on using compounds from organisms that have evolved to live at near-zero or even sub-zero environments.
Enzymes from arctic fish that remain active near the freezing mark allow food processors to operate at lower - and safer - temperatures. Such cold-adapted enzymes show potential for improving products from bread to beer.
Other companies are using so-called "antifreeze proteins" found in Arctic plants and animals as a way to improve the taste, texture and safety of frozen food. One company is using antifreeze proteins from the Arctic pout, an eel-like fish found off Labrador, to make a low-fat ice cream....
Who's working in this field:
Of 31 known patents concerning products derived from Arctic organisms, two-thirds are held by U.S. companies. None are Canadian.
Leary's report found only three Canadian companies involved in Arctic bioprospecting. Iceland, with a population slightly smaller than that of Halifax, has 10.
With four universities pursuing the area, Leary said Norway has the most developed Arctic marine biotechnology facilities. Other countries with Arctic research facilities looking into biotechnology include China, South Korea, Poland, Germany and India.
As a bonus, here are two items I found while looking into this. Botonist Hanne Hegre Grundt thinks there may be many more species in the Arctic that heretofore thought: Arctic Plenty:
Grundt’s latest article, in Apollon, contends that there are thousands more Arctic plant species than scientists had thought. Previous studies far underestimated the number of species, Grundt discovered, because the Arctic is home to so many “cryptic species.” These are plants that, even to the expert eye, appear identical, but in fact they are genetically so different “that their pairing fails to produce fertile hybrids.”
In other words, a dryas octopetala (Mountain Avens) in Russia may not actually be the same plant as the dryas octopetala in Svalbard, Norway.
Where is Arctic botanical work taking place:
Grundt’s breakthrough is indicative of Norway’s scholarly vitality in this field. “Whereas the North American and Russian expertise, on the average, is approaching retirement, the Norwegian research environment is seeing a steady influx of new students.” According to the Centre for Advanced Study, “Alaska, Canada, and Denmark/Greenland have fewer students of Arctic botany than Oslo alone.... The trend in the United States and Canada is for students to be attracted to more lucrative studies like biotechnology or agriculture-related subjects, or to purely theoretical courses.”
Andrew Revkin reports on research into Arctic plant adaptations to past warming events: Many Arctic Plants Have Adjusted to Big Climate Changes Study Finds:
Many Arctic plant species have readily adjusted to big climate changes, repeatedly recolonizing the rugged islands of the remote Svalbard archipelago off Norway’s coast through 20,000 years of warm and cool spells since the frigid peak of the last ice age, researchers report in today’s issue of the journal Science.
Their finding implies that, in the Arctic at least, plants may be able to shift long distances to follow the climate conditions for which they are best adapted as those conditions move under the influence of human-caused global warming, the researchers and some independent experts said.
Some experts on climate and biology who were not involved with the study, which was led by scientists from the University of Oslo, said it provided a glimmer of optimism in the face of generally bleak scientific assessments of the vulnerability of ecosystems to the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases.
Hat tip to Art Diamond for the pointer to Revkin's article: Arctic Species Readily Adjust to Big Climate Swings.
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