Page 507 - Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

464 Refining Biomass Residues for Sustainable Energy and Bioproducts

are typically called secondary metabolites. Development of new drug from marine
resources is also discovered for new innovation to create effective and safe drugs of
consumers for the increased demands of the world population (Hill and Fenical,
2010).
Marine resources have greater attention in recent research on new bioactive com-
pounds with increased potency and therapeutic benefits in the dietary and functional
foods (Shahidi and Kamil, 2001). For centuries, marine resources are used as tradi-
tional medicine to treat various human disease ailments. Marine biotechnology is
considered to be an area of interest in building an eco-sustainable and highly effi-
cient society. This leads to the development of renewable energy products and
resources from the marine environment. This chapter describes the potential of blue
biotechnology along with marine-derived products. It also gives information regard-
ing the nascent and developing concept of the ocean economy.

21.2 Marine resources in the world of ocean

The ocean contains the most abundant valuable ecological resources of the earth.
Sustainable use of these marine-based natural products would help in modern-day
applications of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, and food industries.
The marine environment constitutes an infinite resource of valuable novel bioactive
compounds from marine organisms such as bacteria, algae, sponges, fish, inverte-
brates, bryozoans, tunicates, and molluscs. Bioactive compounds from these organ-
isms are effectively used in new therapeutic agents, human nutrition with highly
specific target molecules especially enzymes.
Bioactive molecules from marine algae are used extensively in nutraceutical and
food industries. Brown algae and seaweeds, which are rich in vitamins, minerals,
and proteins, provide indispensable benefits on human health (Plaza et al., 2008).
Marine fish is the most significant, valuable, and inexpensive species to the world
economy for human consumption. Fish is the major source of nutritional benefits
with vitamins, unsaturated essential fatty acids, and minerals (Kim and Pallela,
2012). Researchers have studied for the therapeutic treatment in cancer and
Alzheimer’s disease (Herpandi et al., 2011). Bioactive molecules identified marine
invertebrates, such as sponges; molluscs have led to the development of many new
therapeutically important agents (Vo and Kim, 2010). Some of the marine resources
and their applications are listed in Table 21.1.

21.3 The economic contribution of ocean

Blue economy emphasizes on the sustainable utilization of ocean and its species
directly or indirectly to preserve for the future generation and improve the eco-
nomic activities. With the resources the economy of marine biotechnology was esti-
mated at 2.8 billion euro in 2010, with an average annual growth of 5% 10%