What is driving innovation in Blue Biotechnology?

May 6, 2025

The vision of Vitor Vasconcelos, President of the board of CIIMAR, consortium partner of Hub Azul Leixões 1.

This interview was conducted with Vitor Vasconcelos, Full Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto and President of the board of CIIMAR, as part of the Blue Compass project, promoted by the Hub Azul Portugal Network, based on insights from the Hub Azul Dealroom, the leading digital matchmaking platform for blue innovation.

What scientific or technological advances are currently driving innovation in Blue Biotechnology?

Innovation in Blue Biotechnology is being driven by several scientific and technological advancements, including advances in genomics, bioinformatics, genetic engineering, and AI. The fact that unraveling complete genomes of organisms combined with AI assisted tools for gene annotation is faster and cheaper, is enabling the discovery of novel bioactive compounds, the development of innovative bioprocessing techniques, and the use of marine organisms for various applications like food and feed production, pharmaceuticals, biofertilizers, cosmetics, novel materials and the use of whole microorganisms for bioremediation.

We have a large part of the marine biodiversity worldwide still undiscovered, in special microorganisms that harbor very rich gene clusters responsible for novel chemistry in special enzymes with industrial applications. The establishment of Marine Blue Biobanks must be seen as a step forward major scientific advances in Blue Biotechnology, with the collection, filling and storage of millions of specimens that can be used worldwide to discover novel uses in a sustainable way.

These Biobanks may be life specimens (collections of bacteria, fungi, microalgae), genetic material, preserved samples or extracts. The Portuguese Blue Biobank, being established under the PRR funding scheme (Blue Innovation Pact) is a good example that is forming a network’s of marine biobanks distributed countrywide to be used by both research community and enterprises top create value.

Which subsectors of Blue Biotechnology (e.g. algae-based materials, gene editing, biofuels, marine bioproducts) have the greatest commercialization potential?

The commercialization of novel products derived from marine organisms will create new economic opportunities, in special for coastal communities and regions with a strong maritime tradition, giving extra-added value to the marine organisms, much higher than the traditional used to be, like products derived from fishing or canning industries.

The applications that can faster reach the market are those in the food and feed sectors, including nutraceuticals that can have higher market prices. These can be used as ingredients that give added value to the final products. Biofertilizers, biostimulants and bioprotectors mainly from algae origin are already being produced by many startups and SME, mostly using micro and macroalgae produced in sustainable circular systems. Cosmetics produced from algae are also increasing their entry into the markets, given the fact that they are vegan as well as have important protective properties compared to non-organic ones.

New applications of marine organisms include textiles and shoe industries (e.g. functional pigments as dyes, fibers from macroalgae, use of discarded nets and collected plastic for shoes), antifouling paints (from cyanobacteria and other microorganisms), new materials (e.g. extracellular polysaccharides for packaging and shelf life expansions of fresh products).

The need for new drugs, in special new antibiotics to fight multi-drug resistant bacteria is also an opportunity for Blue Biotech in a medium-long production period but with a high commercialization potential.

What are the main challenges — technical, regulatory or financial — that currently limit the scalability of Blue Biotechnology solutions?

These challenges range from factors like the complexity of marine ecosystems and access to genetic resources, regulatory hurdles for new technologies, in special gene editing, and difficulties in securing funding for potentially high-risk, long-term projects. The development of Blue Biotechnology sector is still much dependent on SME (spin-offs and startups) that stroke to find technical and financial resources to develop their products, processes and services.

Initial funding is always a problem in a sector that does not provide immediate return compared to the IT sector. There is a need to establish strong incubators close to established research centers that can give technological support to the initial stages of the SME. Blue Biotechnology sector usually needs expensive technological resources that a recently created SMER cannot and should not afford. Funding entities that support a high-risk high gain sector is also needed since SME are highly dependent of high funds during the first stages of their developments and this is a severe limitation in Europe.

Simplification of licensing is also needed since these SME cannot wait several years to get permits to operate, build premises or license new products. Consumer-oriented communication is also a critical action to facilitate the acceptance of a particular product or service by the end-consumer. This particular action is helpful for stakeholders throughout the value chain, but most often it is only economically sustainable for large companies.