Marine organisms and microorganisms are a source of natural compounds with unique chemical features applied in several areas like, drug discovery, cosmetics, materials and production of biofuels.

New marine natural products are discovered every day and access to information about these molecules should be organized and free-access for better exploitation.

In this mini-review published in the Biotechnology Journal by Arménio Barbosa and Cecília Roque gives the current state of the art on marine natural products' databases and their application is discussed to impulse the development of free-access databases of these products. The information provided aims to push and broad the exploitation of new marine natural products in several areas of biotechnology. 

Barbosa AJM & Roque ACA 2019. Free Marine natural products databases for biotechnology and bioengineering. Biotechnology Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/biot.201800607