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Most seaweed species that function as biofilters for finfish aquaculture have little market value, so produced biomass remains a by-product of biofiltration. This low value makes operation of these units economically difficult and is probably the key to today’s lack of industrial application of an otherwise highly feasible biofiltration method. 

The main goal of a seaweed biofilter design should be the production of marketable biomass, which would then turn aquaculture effluent from a nuisance into a resource, and its biofiltration into a positive side effect. 

Members of the marine plant ecology research group of the Center for Marine Sciences at the University of Algarve in Portugal have successfully established a commercially diverse seaweed biofilter using the tetrasporophyte of the red seaweed Asparagopsis armata. The plant is also referred to as Falkenbergia rufolanosa. 

F. rufolanosa produces high levels of biologically active secondary metabolites. Among these compounds are natural antibiotic, antifungal, and anti-viral substances that are marketable for a wide range of applications in the fields of antifouling, cosmetics, and medicine. 

Human population will be peaking at about 9 billion people in 2050. Our human need to alleviate hunger and poverty suggests we will strive to double food and energy production in spite of the consequences to our environment. Oceans are particularly at risk from an excess of plant nutrients and increasing greenhouse gases.

Excess plant nutrients overwhelm natural systems, causing dead zones where the dissolved oxygen is depleted by decaying plants. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations cause ocean acidification, which prevents many creatures from building their protective shells. It also warms the ocean, killing coral and causing mass migrations of species. The excess of plant nutrients comes from artificial agricultural fertilizers, inadequately treated or recycled municipal and livestock wastewater, and burning fuels. The carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels.

Drug nanodelivery systems (DNDSs) are fascinated cargos to achieve outstanding therapeutic results of various drugs or natural bioactive compounds owing to their unique structures. The efficiency of several pharmaceutical drugs or natural bioactive ingredients is restricted because of their week bioavailability, poor bioaccessibility and pharmacokinetics after orally pathways. In order to handle such constraints, usage of native/natural polysaccha- rides (NPLS) in fabrication of DNDSs has gained more popularity in the arena of nanotechnology for controlled drug delivery to enhance safety, biocompatibility, better retention time, bioavailability, lower toxicity and en- hanced permeability. The main commonly used NPLS in nanoencapsulation systems include chitosan, pectin, al- ginates, cellulose, starches, and gums recognized as potential materials for fabrication of cargos. Herein, this review is centered on different polysaccharide-based nanocarriers including nanoemulsions, nanohydrogels, nanoliposomes, nanoparticles and nanofibers, which have already served as encouraging candidates for entrap- ment of therapeutic drugs as well as for their sustained controlled release. Furthermore, the current article explic- itly offers comprehensive details regarding application of NPLS-based nanocarriers encapsulating several drugs intended for the handling of numerous disorders, including diabetes, cancer, HIV, malaria, cardiovascular and respiratory as well as skin diseases. 

Algal research for the development of large-scale production of biofuels in open ponds is often believed to have started in the US as part of the Department of Energy's Aquatic Species Program in the early 1980s. Little attention, however, has been paid to earlier algal research collaborations between the US and other countries, particularly Japan. These collaborations include US algal research in the 1950s under the visionary leadership of scientist/politician Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) that strategically built upon Japanese efforts led by the microbiologist Hiroshi Tamiya (1903–1984). Unpublished reports and correspondence held in archives in the Smithsonian Museum and the Carnegie Institute of Washington became available to the author. They shed new light on these collaborations. This article uses these documents and more recent sources to review events associated with Bush inviting Tamiya to visit the US in 1952 to collaborate with American scientists at the Carnegie Institution and elsewhere even while Japan was still under US/Allied Occupation. These interactions continued during the 1950s. Articles, reports on experimental results and Tamiya's observations of algal research in the US, Europe and Asia found among the sources are still pertinent. Furthermore, Tamiya's successful mass outdoor culture of algae, particularly Chlorella, in a pilot plant in Japan in the 1950s that became commercially successful had productivities on a par with results reported in the US as recently as 2018. However, while lessons were learned from early collaborations between the US and Japan, many have been subsequently overlooked. There are lessons to be learned from these early US-Japan collaborations that draw attention to pioneering algal research and the need to maintain archives. They also reveal critical continuities and provide perspectives on current algal biofuels research.