Re: Sea hares bioprospecting

March 1, 2006
From: Skip Pierce

Concerning message #15952:

Just a couple of thoughts on this. I'm certainly no expert on the business end of this and I'm sure you'll make your decision based on whatever you think makes sense, not on what I'm about to say. The Aplysia culture facility in Miami that Bill mentioned was originated because a major research need, namely Aplysia giant neurons, was well established and was not going to go away. Ultimately generated the Nobel prize a few years ago. I believe the current facility at the University of Miami is highly subsidized by the NIH. I visited it not too long ago and it is a marvelous factory for growing and shipping Aplysia californica, which as far as I know does not occur naturally in Florida, of all sizes and ages. The facility ships thousands of cultured Aplysia per year all over the world. I don't pretend to know their financing, but would bet, in spite of their enormous aquacultural skill and the research need for the organism, that they may not turn a profit. They also have to grow in huge amounts the several kinds of algae needed by the Aplysia life cycle. Now, this is all done with organisms for which there is already an established market and it was already established BEFORE the culture facility was developed. You seem to be thinking of raising a species on the possibility that there might be a market-big risk I think-but you are the businessman
Good luck.
Skip Pierce

pierce@cas.usf.edu

Pierce, S. K., 2006 (Mar 1) Re: Sea hares bioprospecting. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/15983

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