Rethinking Seaweeds via Applications and Technologies : Composition, Toxicology, Economy and Sustainability

This book explores the basic structure, distribution, ecological, and commercial applications (pharmaceutical, medical, cosmetic, nutritional; food and feed source, agriculture, industrial, biodiesel, and nanotechnology), risks, and sustainability of seaweeds. Also, this book presents in detail the primary and secondary metabolites and their significance in traditional and pharmaceutical medicine, as well as cosmetics. Using various computational and informatics frameworks, targeted seaweed omics research can quickly advance our understanding of molecular biological processes and help address today’s most pressing environmental and social issues. Furthermore, this book explains how seaweed can operate as a “carbon capture and storage” system in nature. It suggests a framework for the term “forensic carbon accounting," which will be important in building a technique for ocean afforestation. Moreover, this book highlighted seaweed resilience research as important for better understanding species-specific sensitivity to marine heatwaves and identifying which coastal sites are most vulnerable to regime changes. Added to the above, this book deeply discusses different technologies that are used to isolate bioactive compounds from seaweed. Additionally, this book discusses the technical and social framework based on ecosystem awareness that supports the objective of sustainable seaweed benefit use. Authors assess policy development, awareness, challenges, and advertising benefits in order to draw attention to the significance of the topic of our book. The information and knowledge presented in the book on the advantages and uses of products based on seaweed would be of particular interest to researchers in the marine field, postgraduate students, and audiences from different disciplines who are interested in marine topics and seaweeds in particular. Socioeconomic research on seaweed uses are beneficial to society and decision-makers alike. Finally, this book motivates the audience to rethink seaweeds as vital components that support many ecosystems in their natural state and offer several ecological and economic services to humans.

Gehan M. El Zokm is a professor at the Marine Chemistry Department and the head of the Marine Environment Division. She is the leader of the halogen, sulfide modeling, and surfactant groups at the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Mediterranean Sea Branch in Egypt. She got her B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in the Chemistry Department at the Faculty of Science of Alexandria University, Egypt, both of which concerned heavy metal chemistry (focusing on preconcentrating and fractionation tools). Her research interests are in analytical, instrumental, and environmental chemistry. Statistical analyses were the most prominent features of her research, which was conducted using the most recent software packages. Her papers discuss the topics of halogen chemistry, water quality, sulfur-sulfide chemistry, eutrophication, and the responses of marine biota to pollutants. Her researches also focus on the mobility and fluxes of various parameters within the marine environment. Extraction of natural products with many applications and nutritional studies is her recent project. Her research is also focused on water treatment and monitoring of pollutants (heavy metals, nutrients, phenols, hydrocarbons, pesticides, and surfactants). She applied factorial design to water treatment experiments. She is interested in the ecotoxicity of pollutants on Egyptian coasts. She reviews many papers for important publishers (Elsevier, Springer, and Taylor and Francis). She headed and participated in several projects related to the marine environment.  She supervised many master's and PhD students, participated in conferences and workshops.  She has 70 research papers and five books.

Mona M. Ismail is a professor of phycology at the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries in Alexandria, Egypt. She got her Ph.D. in 2010 and her M.Sc. in 2005 from the Faculty of Science, Tanta University, Egypt. She has published more than 53 papers in international journals and is also an editor on the board of six interdisciplinary journals in the environment and related sciences and a reviewer in 47 international scientific journals. Participating in several national projects since 2014 until now and supervising master’s and doctoral theses. Her research is interested in the classification, identification, biodiversity, and biotechnology of algae.

Mariam Helmy Mostafa is a young researcher, sustainability advocate who graduated from the College of Pharmacy at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) in 2024. Now, she is a master's student in the faculty of pharmacy, Alexandria University. She is a teaching assistant at AASTMT. Currently holds the position of official European Union jeel connector, which belongs to the EU delegation to Egypt. The chemistry of natural products, phototherapy, and nutrition is her major scientific research interest. Mariam pursued her career in academic research, succeeded in publishing two articles on natural products. She is an active member of many national and international networks that support scientific research, youth empowerment, sustainable development, and entrepreneurship.