Sea drugs breakthrough

An international team of scientists have cloned marine DNA in a bid to obtain a sustainable supply of exciting new drug leads from the sea.
The work is a world-first achievement designed to eliminate the ‘supply’ obstacle that has in the past stopped the development of many promising marine-derived drugs.

Professor Marcel Jaspars, from the Marine Natural Products Laboratory within the Chemistry Department at the University of Aberdeen, has been leading the research and has found that chemicals from marine organisms, such as sponges and seasquirts, show great promise in the treatment of cancer, inflammation and viral diseases.

The main problem has been obtaining a large-scale supply of these complex chemicals for worldwide use in an ecologically sustainable and economically viable way.

The methodology, developed by an international team of scientists from the University of Aberdeen, The London School of Pharmacy and The Australian Institute of Marine Science, heralds a new future for the development of such compounds.