He identified this as an area for future global industry with enormous growth potential and with environmental and economic benefits, especially within the context of a circular economy.
“It’s all about 21st Century change,” he says. “I felt that the old ways of chemical engineering would no longer be sustainable. However, I saw huge opportunities ahead to study Australia’s abundant marine resources. I could see that examining the ocean in much greater detail would become our next great scientific frontier.”
He led the creation of the Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development at Flinders University in 2009, which served as a crucial springboard for the recently announced $270 million Marine Bioproducts Cooperative Research Centre (MB-CRC). Flinders University led the MB-CRC bid, which involved a consortium of 68 Australian and international research, industry and government partners.
It’s an exciting moment for Flinders University, marking its first successful CRC bid and cutting an important path for future economic development. The MB-CRC has secured $59 million of federal funding for 10 years. This will unlock the awesome potential for advanced production and manufacturing of marine bioproducts to help feed a hungry planet, provide new nutritional products, address diseases ranging from cancer to Parkinson’s, create innovative eco-friendly bioplastics and skin-protective cosmeceuticals, and develop functional animal feed additives to curb climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.
This wide-ranging, decade-long research and development program will transform Australia’s emerging marine bioproducts sector into a sustainable and globally competitive industry with an anticipated $1.5 billion annual turnover by 2030. Globally, the marine biotechnology industry is expected to reach over $700 billion by 2035.
With a goal to expand Australia’s existing marine biotechnology enterprises through developing a suite of manufacturing technologies and high-value marine bioproducts, the MB-CRC’s first projects are expected to start in early 2022.
Beyond introducing innovations to improve the productive output of existing fisheries and aquaculture, the MB-CRC aims to develop advanced manufacturing and high-value marine bioproducts. Current Australian enterprises represent a very modest economic value – about $4 billion compared to China’s marine bio-industries worth about $250 billion – but Professor Zhang sees an opportunity to rapidly accelerate growth in this sector.
Southern Australia has more than 1,400 species of seaweed – up to 60% being unique to our waters and representing 15% of the world’s red and brown seaweeds. For the MB-CRC, these seaweeds, plus marine microalgae and filter-feeding animals, represent new sources of marine biomass which, through the development of advanced manufacturing technologies and processing, lay the foundation to generate high-value marine bioproducts.
Sustainable nutrition is a pressing issue, with questions of how adequate protein supplies can meet increasing demand from a rising global population. As a viable alternative to animal production, fast-growing, protein-rich microalgae can be produced in controlled environments, making them ideal candidates for meat-protein substitution that could build into a thriving export industry.
However, functional foods and nutritional products represent only a portion of this high-value bioproducts market; other great growth opportunities lay in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, agrochemicals, bioactive feeds, cosmetics, marine bio-plastics and emerging bio-synthetic building materials.
“It’s simple – by concentrating our efforts on high-value products, we can make more profitability from constrained supplies and with less effort,” says Professor Zhang. “The size and scale of these opportunities, in combination with their environmental sustainability, will encourage people to develop more marine bioproducts businesses.”
High-value marine biomaterials are also directly applicable to the medical sector – especially the use of marine biodegradable plastics to create single-use items such as masks, gloves and sterile dressings, as well as 3D printing of materials for tissue and organ replacement. “These are safe, bio-compatible and non-toxic materials, and they will be recognised as a perfect solution for meeting the enormous demands of hospitals and medical centres.”
Professor Zhang says the wider application of marine bioproducts can also contribute significantly to the push for a carbon-neutral society. “Red algae added to animal feed improves their digestion and can dramatically decrease an animal’s methane emissions, reducing greenhouse gas problems,” he says. “We keep finding more and more ways that marine bioproducts provide unexpected functions and benefits.”
Professor Zhang’s new role will be Research Director of the MB-CRC, as the Flinders team grows to about a dozen key researchers, supported by up to 30 research students. Their aim will be to propel a $1.5 billion per annum delivery to industry and to stimulate job growth toward 10,000 a year by 2030.
Through pioneering and driving this research in Australia, Professor Zhang believes Flinders University will further its international reputation in this important and emerging field of scientific and technological development.
He reflects that persistence has paid off.
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