Papers from MarPipe and Ocean Medicines

Dear Colleagues,

The marine environment encompasses tremendous biological and chemical diversity, which are still largely untapped. Marine microorganisms possess secondary metabolites that assist in survival and defense in these harsh habitats. Particularly, marine resources are involved in value-added products and processes in the food, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and bioprocess industries. Bioprospecting for these natural products is important to the European Union’s (EU) growing “blue” bioeconomy, which is focused on creating employment, boosting economic growth, and contributing to a healthier and sustainable society. Blue growth is a system employed by the EU to make provision for sustainable development from the marine and maritime sectors. Since the seas and oceans play a pivotal role in driving the European economy, its contribution to achieving the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth cannot be overlooked. The “blue” economy contributes approximately 5.4 million jobs and produces a gross added value of nearly €500 billion per year. However, additional growth can be acquired by developing sectors that have a high potential for sustainable jobs and growth, such as aquaculture, coastal tourism, ocean energy, seabed mining, and marine biotechnology.

Therefore, in order to fully exploit these promising biological resources, new strategies in the pipeline as well as a new cohort of cross-disciplinary trained scientists are needed to overcome existing bottlenecks and ensure the production of high-value biomolecules.

The H2020-MSCA-ITN-ETN: MarPipe is a Research and Training Network program of 11 academic and industrial partners based in eight European countries working in collaboration to train young researchers in the field of marine drug discovery.

The H2020-MSCA-RISE: Ocean Medicines is a network of academic research centers and SMEs across Europe, with proven experience in higher education and training, and is endowed with state-of-the art scientific and technical expertise and infrastructures, aimed at hosting a new generation of marine biodiscovery scientists from developing a new drug to its commercialization, innovation, and possibilities of entrepreneurship.

Therefore, this Special Issue will focus on the research outputs as well as review articles, conducted or written by this new generation of marine biodiscovery scientists trained in the MarPipe and Ocean Medicines, highlighting new compounds, strategies, and improvements in the pipeline of marine biodiscovery.

Dr. Donatella De Pascale
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.