016 – Biodiscovery/Bioprospecting with Marcel Jaspars

https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/016-biodiscovery

We are in desperate need for new bioactive compounds. Superbugs are on the rise as evolution finds a way of thwarting our antibiotics. We are also continually on the hunt for compounds that can fight disease, ease suffering or get your teeth super white. The natural world has been experimenting for millions of years and has come up with solutions far more elegant than we could come up with.

Don pops by to make us aware of bioprospecting. The ocean, and in particular the deep ocean, may be the best place to look for new compounds but is this a threat to the ocean? It is often mentioned alongside seabed trawling, climate change and mining as a threat to the deep ocean. Should we call it bioprospecting or biodiscovery and what’s the difference? If most of the world’s ocean belongs to everyone, who owns a discovery? How do we ensure that developed nations, who are better equipped to benefit from a discovery, don’t leave developing nations out? Are companies really patenting naturally occurring compounds? If we find something exciting, what is the process for it becoming the next wonder drug?

While they both agree that looking for new compounds in the deep sea sounds good, Alan and Thom are soon stumped by the complexities of actually making that happen in a fair and sustainable way. Luckily, they can call on Professor Marcel Jaspars, head of the Marine Biodiscovery Centre to help us through the practicalities of biodiscovery but also its political and ethical complexities.

As ever there will be a roundup of current news. The sex-lives of giant squid, are they monogamous? India launches its Deep Ocean Mission with the intention of starting deep-sea mining and we ponder why large surface predators would dive very deep.

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Glossary

Benthopelagic - Living and feeding near the bottom as well as in midwaters or near the surface but also the depth zone about 100 metres off the bottom at all depths below the edge of the continental shelf.

Endothermy – Animals that regulate their body temperature (we used to call this ‘warm blooded’)

Geomagnetic – The Earth’s magnetic field e.g., magnetic north.

Mantle – The muscular tube that makes up a squids body.

Mesopelagic – Open water fish between about 200 and 1,000 metres (approximately 650 and 3,300 ft) down.

SoFAR channel - sound fixing and ranging channel. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and low frequency sound waves within the channel may travel thousands of miles before dissipating.

Vertical migration – Every night, mesopelagic fish come shallower to feed. This is the largest migration on Earth and it happens every day.

Links

Giant squid could be monogamous

Article:

Paper (paywall):

Bone and wood eating worms of the Antarctic

India’s Deep-Ocean Mission approved

Deep diving large marine predators

Are whales making these depressions in the deep seabed?

Take two clams and call me in the morning (paywall)

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

The Convention on Biological Diversity

The Nagoya Protocol

The Deepest of Ironies (paywall)

Evolving Perspectives On The International Seabed Area’s Genetic Resources: Fifteen Years After The ‘Deepest Of Ironies’ (paywall)

Who owns marine biodiversity? Contesting the world order through the ‘common heritage of humankind’ principle

Corporate control and global governance of marine genetic resources

Polymers: Secrets from the deep sea

Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS)

Ocean Tool for Public Understanding and Science (OcToPUS)

Deep sea at the Chelsea Flower Show

Song of the Ocean – Global Virtual Performance 2021

Sharing the Benefits of the Ocean (loads of wider reading here)

Credits

Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel

Logo image

Far Below the Sea Blooms – Chelsea Flower Show, Marcel Jaspars

One of Thom and Alan’s cultures

Hidden track

Someone To Watch Over Me

by Ira and George Gershwin; Linda Keene; Henry Levine and his Strictly from Dixie Jazz Band

Humpback Whale (Megaptera Novaeangliae) – BBC sound archive