Comparative, adaptiveandfunctional skeletal biology

Marmed Project

MARMED

Development of innovating biomedical products from marine resources valorization

Summary

The extracting and processing industry of fishing products is widely and historically rooted in the Atlantic Area countries. Its activity produces a wide range of by-products from many different species in remarkable amounts.

These wrongly classified by-products contain a great amount of bio-molecules and biopolymers which have high potential and are applicable to pharmacology, nutraceutical and biomedicine. Likewise marine organisms generally represent a huge reservoir of molecules and possibilities practically tireless and yet to be discovered. Others such as macro algae have a great potential despite their uneven use and exploitation along the Atlantic Area. Some of their applications are effluent treatment methods, source of biopolymers or food uses.

The under-use of these by-products involves a double end: on one hand leads to a negative environmental impact in many cases –trophic and parasite ecology- and on the other hand means a way of wasting. This is opposite to the official position, which stands for an integral use of resources aiming to their sustainable exploitation. Despite the unquestionable benefits of a higher use of by-products we are still far away from reaching an acceptable valorization rate. On one hand there is a certain logistics trouble as the spreading nature of the origin or the heterogeneous quality. On the other hand the need to promote research is still a key factor to discover and identify the value hid inside those by- products and organisms.

MARMED Project, whose title is Development of innovating biomedical products from marine resources valorization, is more concisely described below. It’s a clear example of collective, interdisciplinary and supranational research at the service of research and industry within this field.

The under-use of these by-products involves a double end: on one hand leads to a negative environmental impact in many cases –trophic and parasite ecology- and on the other hand means a way of wasting. This is opposite to the official position, which stands for an integral use of resources aiming to their sustainable exploitation. Despite the unquestionable benefits of a higher use of by-products we are still far away from reaching an acceptable valorization rate. On one hand there is a certain logistics trouble as the spreading nature of the origin or the heterogeneous quality. On the other hand the need to promote research is still a key factor to discover and identify the value hid inside those by- products and organisms.

MARMED Project, whose title is Development of innovating biomedical products from marine resources valorization, is more concisely described below. It’s a clear example of collective, interdisciplinary and supranational research at the service of research and industry within this field.

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Reference/contract number

2011-1/164

Duration

03/2012 to 06/2014

Partners

University of Minho - 3Bs Research Group (PT)
University of Vigo - Applied Physics Department (ES)
NUI Galway - Irish Seaweed Research Group (IR)
Centro Tecnológico del Mar - Fundación CETMAR (ES)
Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar (PT)
CSIC - Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas (ES)
IPIMAR-Instituto Investigação das Pescas e do Mar (PT)
Université de Bretagne Occidentale - Laboratoire des Sciences de l’Environnement Marin /FR)
Queen’s University Belfast - School of Biological Sciences (IR)
University of Algarve – Department of Biomedical Sciences and Medicine (PT)
Contact
M. Leonor Cancela
lcancela@ualg.pt leonor-cancela
Funding entity innovation-networksatlantic-areaEU