MARINE GENE RUSH

The genes that make life possible in the ocean’s extreme environments are its greatest treasures.

Take the bacteria Shewanella oneidensis, which has a ‘take it or leave it’ approach to oxygen: it can live with or without it.

Or the California brown sea hare, a hermaphroditic mollusc also in possession of some of the biggest brain cells in the animal kingdom.

Getting hold of the genetic sequences of such creatures could be very useful – and profitable. When an international group of academic marine scientists set about trying to find out who was acquiring patents on such marine gene sequences they made a startling discovery. They found that nearly half of the 12,998 patent sequences, derived from the genes of 862 marine species (ranging in size from a sperm