Biotechnology is a risky business. More than 14,000 biotechnology companies have been founded since 1980 but only five are on record as being profitable (Liles 250). However, despite the low industry revenues, biotechnology is a promising field and many discoveries have been made as a result of this industry which have proven or promising medical applications. Biotechnology researchers explore terrestrial plants and microbial fermentation in order to discover novel chemicals or novel properties in known chemicals that may have applications useful to man. The rain forest has provided many of these novel chemicals used in everything from anticancer pharmaceuticals to cosmetics. However, the number of novel chemicals from these sources is in decline. This has led biotechnology researchers to begin exploration of the last vast unexplored region of the earth—the ocean. In 1991, the Office of Technology defined marine biotechnology as “any technique that uses living marine organisms (or parts of these organisms) to make or modify products, to improve plants or animals, or to develop microorganisms for specific uses” (Burris 235).
Biotechnology has been used for years to help solve medical, environmental and nutritional problems. However, marine biotechnology is an industry in its infancy stages, one where the hype and hope often overshadow the fact that very few recent drugs or other major products have resulted from its endeavors. Despite this reality, there are many who are willing to invest in the marine biotechnology industry, betting there is more potential in the ocean than we know how to tap at the present time, “Scientists remain convinced that as more is learned about the enormously diverse assemblage of species that inhabit the oceans, novel products and processes are likely to emerge through the specific use of marine biotechnology. This belief has been supported by the private sector and the federal governm...