The United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, an institution the naming of which is hard to reckon with, has completed a study earlier this year of the various ways researchers are using DNAs found in the Arctic to create and improve all kinds of products, drugs, and biochemical functions. Published in April, the report is finding audience among the jet set technocrats who must have walked to a United Nations sponsored conference in northern Iceland this week.
From the Canadian Press:
Most of the activity so far has focused on using compounds from organisms that have evolved to live at near-zero or even sub-zero environments.
Enzymes from arctic fish that remain active near the freezing mark allow food processors to operate at lower – and safer – temperatures. Such cold-adapted enzymes show potential for improving products from bread to beer.
Other companies are using so-called “antifreeze proteins” found in Arctic plants and animals as a way to improve the taste, texture and safety of frozen food. One company is using antifreeze proteins from the Arctic pout, an eel-like fish found off Labrador, to make a low-fat ice cream.
Some of those proteins may have medical value. Proteins from the Arctic squirrel, the only mammal known to be able to lower its body temperature below freezing, are being tested to see if they will help people recover from strokes.
More from the Canadian Press…
Press release: Experts Consider Need for New Rules to Govern World’s Fragile Polar Regions…
UNU-IAS Report: Bioprospecting in the Arctic (.pdf)…