bia and under the Antarctic ice, the primary focus of marine biodiversity prospecting has been the tropics. Tropical seas are well-known to be areas of high biological diversity and, therefore, logical sites of high chemical diversity. Much of the deep sea is yet to be explored, and very little exploration has occurred at higher latitudes. With rare exceptions (e.g., the analysis of deep-sea cores to identify unusual microbes), marine organisms from the deep-sea floor, mid-water habitats, and high-latitude marine environments and most of the sea surface itself have not been studied. The reason for this deficiency is primarily financial: oceanographic expeditions are expensive, and neither federal nor pharmaceutical-industry funding has been available to support oceanographic exploration and discovery of novel marine resources. The potential for discovery of novel bioproducts from yet-to-be discovered species of marine macroorganisms and microorganisms (including symbionts) is high (see Carter, p. 47 in this report; de Vries and Beart, 1995; Cragg and Newman, 2000; Mayer and Lehmann, 2001).

To optimize identification of marine resources with medicinal potential, the best tools for discovery must be used at all stages of exploration: in new locations, for collection of organisms never before sampled, and for the identification of chemicals with pharmaceutical potential. Increased sophistication in the tools available to explore the deep sea has expanded the habitats that can be sampled and has greatly improved the opportunities for discovery of new species and the chemical compounds that they produce. New and improved vehicles are being developed to take us farther and deeper in the ocean. These platforms need to be equipped with even more sophisticated and sensitive instruments to identify an organism as new, to assess its potential for novel chemical constituents, and if possible, to nondestructively remove a sample of the organism. Tools and sensors that have been developed for space exploration and diagnostic medicine need to be applied to the discovery of new marine resources.

Perhaps the greatest untapped source of novel bioproducts is marine microorganisms (see Fenical, p. 45 in this report; Bentley, 1997; Gerwick and Sitachitta, 2000; Gerwick et al., 2001). Although new technologies are rapidly expanding our knowledge of the microbial world, research to date suggests that less than 1% of the total marine microbial species diversity can be cultured with commonly used methods (see Giovannoni, p. 65 in this report). That means chemicals produced by as many as 99 percent of the microorganisms in the ocean have not yet been studied for potential commercial applications. These organisms constitute an enormous un-