BlueTools: innovative tools for sustainable exploration of marine microbiomes

Marine microbiomes represent 90% of the total living marine biomass but only a small fraction of them can be cultivated. his makes them a largely untapped source of valuable bioactive compounds, carbohydrate polymers, proteins, and more. However, collecting marine samples, identifying useful microbes, and isolating them is a difficult and costly process. It also places a strain on the environment, has low success rates, and takes a long time to bring discoveries to market. As a result, new methods are needed to overcome these challenges and unlock the potential of marine microbial communities for ecological and industrial applications.

BLUETOOLS will unravel the potential of marine microbiomes for healthier oceans and the Blue Bioeconomy through the integration of different fields to develop cutting-edge tools that support fast, efficient and sustainable exploration and exploitation of microbiomes, avoiding the drawbacks of conventional biodiscovery practices. The expected results of BLUETOOLS include discovering several hundreds of enzymes, rhodopsins, resistance genes, antimicrobials and anti-microfouling agents.