Emerging and unresolved issues: the example of marine genetic resources of areas beyond national jurisdiction - Ocean Sustainability in the 21st Century - page 310

inventions. This is particularly true for bacteria and other microbes from hydrothermal vent
environments. For example, the figures below provide a number of examples of patented
inventions related to organisms collected from hydrothermal vent environments. Box 9.1
also provides examples of some important products from deep-sea bacteria.
Box 9.1 Examples of enzymes developed from deep-sea genetic resources (Leary et al ., 2009 )
Fuelzyme™ enzyme was developed on the basis of samples collected from a hydro-
thermal vent, likely from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This enzyme, which is currently
marketed by Verenium (USA), is used in ethanol production from corn.
Vent polymerase is a thermostable enzyme sourced from a hydrothermal vent ar-
chaebacteria ( Pyrococcus sp.) in Italy. It is marketed by New England Biolabs (USA)
for use in DNA cloning, sequencing, and amplification.
Venuceane™ is an enzyme showing antioxidant properties, based on the bacteria
Thermus thermophilus collected in the Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California, at 2000 m
depth. The enzyme is marketed by the French company Sederma for use in cosmetics.
While the majority of source organisms originate from areas within national jurisdiction
(Oldham et al ., 2014 ) , there are some documented cases of samples collected from marine
areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction which have resulted in patented inventions.
These patents have been filed by entities from both developed and more advanced devel-
oping countries such as India and China. For example, a patent related to an enzyme from a
marine fungus ( Aspergillus sp.) for use in laundry detergents (patent EP1692296, Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research, India) was originally collected from a depth of 5000
m in the Central Indian Basin, and likely comes from beyond national jurisdiction. Sim-
ilarly, mapping of coordinates extracted either from a patent application or the referenced
scientific literature indicates that patents filed for a polysaccharide from bacterium Vibrio
diabolicus for use in bone repair and other medical purposes (US patent 7,015,206, Institut
Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer, France), a polymerase from hyper-