Genetic Yacht Lab Maps Sea Life Looking for Cures
A team of scientists has begun collecting the genomes of sea creatures off the Florida coast in the hopes that unmapped species, some of which have the capacity to reverse disease and injury in themselves, may hold the key to new treatments for humans. Of about 250,000 marine species identified so far, scientists have sequenced the genetic material of only about three dozen, according to University of Florida neuroscientist Leonid Moroz. To speed up the process of making potential new discoveries, a team led by Moroz used a yacht loaded with a fully equipped genomic laboratory to do the sequencing on the ocean in real time.
