Scientists at Bermuda's Biological Station for Research (BBSR) are ready to dive head first into the waters of one of the fastest growing and most exciting new fields of research - marine genomics.

Seed funding was identified to start the programme in 2001 and this month BBSR established a relationship with Human Genome Project pioneer Dr. Craig Venter which promises to add further momentum to their ambitious goals.

The scientists hope to find miracles of medicine, tools of industry and clean fuel sources lying untapped on the ocean floor.

Since the Human Genome Project was completed in 2000 - sped to an early conclusion by the challenge Dr. Venter's company Celera Genomics posed to a publicly-funded consortium of scientists working on the project - the possibilities created by genomic research are boundless.

Applying the newly honed tools of the field to the vast, yet largely unknown, biological resources of the ocean, is where the biostation hopes to make its next scientific mark.

Dr. Venter is teaming with BBSR in his search for a microbe which converts carbon dioxide into a clean fuel source - hydrogen. Such a discovery would serve the dual purpose of combating global warming - by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - and providing a clean energy alternative.

While, Dr. Venter's microbe has yet to be found, BBSR's Dr. Hank Trapido-Rosenthal has already identified genes in an oceanic sponge that seem to stimulate bone growth in humans.

Access to new genetic material will now drive future developments in the field and here the ocean offers bottomless recourses - less than one percent of marine organisms are known to scientists.

BBSR has already purchased a robotic genomic decoders (with the help of a donor) and is now establishing a "clone bank".

Dr. Trapido-Rosenthal said the first genetic deposit to the "clone bank" was made this month using a water sample from Ferry Reach.

"By passing litres (of water sampled) through a filter, the bacteria is collected and then chemically processed to extract the DNA," he explained. "The DNA from thousands of organisms is extracted. The rest is disposed of. The DNA is then cloned into a lab strain of the culture which can be stored indefinitely in a deep freeze."

If a particular piece of genetic material is needed in the future, researchers will be able to search the Bio-Station database to find a match. The material can then be removed from the `bank' and cloned for their purposes.

Future deposits to the clone bank are planned for water samples from Castle Harbour, local coral reefs and the deep ocean of the Sargasso Sea, the scientists said.

With the only clone bank to date for Atlantic waters, the biostation hopes to become "the hotspot" for researchers as genomics begins to burgeon.

"The real opportunity is in the deep ocean because very few have done it," BBSR director Dr. Tony Knap said. "Water there ranges from a few years to thousands of years old."

And it represents a mixture of biological material from around the globe due to the movement and mixture of the world's waters. Dr. Knap said most of the hundreds of thousands of bacteria in the ocean could not be cultured using old tools and therefore, even if an energy source or medical cure had been identified, it could not have been reproduced.

With the advances of genomics however, a gene found in a uncultivable organism which offers the results scientists are looking for, can be isolated, cut out and used to genetically modify a domesticated strain of bacteria. Similar techniques have already been used in plants to produce pest-resistant strains of rice, Dr. Knap said, but in terms of marine organisms the potential has yet to be explored.

"The full possibilities have yet to be imagined," Dr. Knap added.

"Part of what Dr. Venter is helping us put together is a plan of action to become a genetic research centre, and exploring what that could look like here," Dr. Knap said.

The only thing limiting BBSR's ambitious plans at the moment is funding, Dr. Knap said.

BBSR estimates it will need $1 million a year in additional funding to develop the kind of genomics programme it wants.

The station also requires another $4 million in funding toward their $6 million building project which will see the addition of two floors to the Conklin Laboratory with one entirely dedicated to marine genomics.

"One of things people discovered with the Human Genome Project and the success of Dr. Venter's Celera Genomics is that if you are going to be innovative, you can't wait for (governmental) funding agencies to fund you," Dr. Knap said.

Ironically, the funding seems to follow once rapid advances are made.

"If we don't move now," Dr. Knap said, "in a year we will already be behind."