Center for Marine Bioactive Substances
( Director : Prof. Pei-Yuan Qian)
 
Background

This Center was funded by the Research Grants Council to study and explore the economic potential of the vast and largely untapped natural products derived from marine bacteria and other microorganisms. The work is being carried out by a team of investigators from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong Chinese University and Hong Kong University, who have excelled in marine biology, microbiology, natural product chemistry, molecular biology, toxicology and biotechnology. We endeavor with one accord to develop a state-of-the-art research center for bioactive natural products from the ocean.

Missions
  • To establish a state-of-the-art new database and culture collection of marine bacteria
  • To produce and purify known and novel bioactive substances
  • To scale up bioproduction processes for potential commercialization
  • To support marine biotechnology industry in Hong Kong and the region
Ongoing research activities

The Center has developed a culture collection of >1000 strains (>300 species) of marine bacteria and a state-of-the-art database. Using these bacteria as resource pool, we have screened bioactive substances for antifouling, anticorrosion, organic pollutant degradation, and biotoxins.

Equipment at the Center

This Center is housed in the Coastal Marine Laboratory of HKUST, which is fitted with molecular biology equipment, analytic equipment including HPLCs, LC-MS, GC-MS, and environmental research facilities including environmental chambers, flow-through seawater system, scintillation and gamma counters, nutrient analyzers, CHN analyzers, TOC analyzers and so on.

Services provided by the Center

  • Identification of marine bacteria in environmental samples
  • Rapid diagnosis of marine bacteria infection
  • Production, purification, analyses and toxicity assays of paralytic shellfish toxins
  • Sequencing of DNAs from marine microorganisms
  • Ecotoxicity bioassays

Key members of the Center

Prof Pei-Yuan Qian (Director of the Center, HKUST)
Prof Ji-Dong Gu (HKU)
Prof Wen-Xiong Wang (HKUST)
Prof Po-Keung Wong (CUHK)