Thousands of genes from deep-sea marine life are being used to create new commercial products ranging from pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. Genes are segments of DNA that provide instructions for making other molecules that are essential for the structure and function of living organisms.
In a paper we recently published with other colleagues, we investigated how bioprospecting – the search and discovery of potential products from animals, plants and microbes – could serve as a less destructive alternative to deep-sea mining.
Notably, all of the largest companies using marine genes have sourced them from deep-sea organisms in some capacity. Deep-sea animals possess unique genes that allow them to live in an environment unlike anything else on Earth, with its intense cold, crushing pressure and total darkness.
