海洋是地球上最大的生物资源库，它不仅提供人类优质蛋白质，还蕴藏有结构新颖、性能独特的生物活性物质。由于海洋环境的严酷性和条件的特殊性，开发海洋资源难度较大，只有利用现代生物技术，特别是关键的基因工程技术，才有可能持续地发展和利用海洋生物资源，从而为解决21世纪人类资源匮乏的问题开创新路。本文以长期困扰对虾养殖业的对虾白班杆状病毒为例，阐述了该病毒基因组研究的进展情况以及开展该病毒功能基因组研究的重要性。病毒的分子生物学研究将为防治养殖病害奠定基础。本文还强调了深海基因资源是一个有待开发的潜在宝库，是国际竞争的焦点之一，开展深海基因资源的研究在我国已刻不容缓。

The ocean offers abundant resources to mankind in foods, pharmaceuticals and other bio-active substances, yet the potential in these areas remains largely unexplored. The article deals with the significance of the application of molecular biology to marine living resources for sustainable development and economic growth with particular attention to its current and prospective uses to mariculture, medicine, industry, etc.

Disease is a major obstacle to successful culturing of fish, shrimp and shellfish. As an example of applying the modern methods of gene engineering to marine culture, the work on white spot bacilliform virus (WSBV) -the major pathogen of shrimp disease-is briefly described. A unique method to isolate the WSBV virus was developed and subsequently the intact and highly purified WSBV genomic DNA was obtained. The entire genome sequence was determined with an accuracy of greater than 99.9%. WSBV is a double stranded circular DNA virus of 305 Kb in length： It is the largest animal virus so far sequenced. By bio-informatics, it is found that several ORFs proteins of WSBV are related to those of yeast, drosophila, herpes virus and other high vertebrates： The degree of homology discovered is significant but does not point to a close relationship between WSBV and other organisms. None of them are related to the proteins specified as baculovirus. Further more, The functional genomics of WSBV have to be investigated in order to understand the mechanism of viral infection and to develop strategies for effective treatment and prevention of shrimp disease.

The most exiting prospects of marine biotechnology are in its potential of discovering new pharmaceutics and other bio-active substances from deep sea. This can be accomplished by cloning these genes from deep sea organisms that control the production of active substances so that to produce the active substances on a large scale. These active substances may be very useful for medicine, industry, environmental protection and military.