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led to their inclusion in Estée Lauder’s
“Resilience” line of skin-care products.
Another coral derivative, eleutherobin,
was discovered several years ago in
a remote shallow sea off the coast of
Australia. It comes from a mottled,
yellow, pickle-shaped soft coral.
Eleutherobin stops malignant tumors
from growing by binding to a protein
called tubulin and disrupting cell division.
SpongeS
Porifera (sponges) are superstars in
the pharmacy of the sea. The beard of
Moses sponge, one of the oldest known
multicellular organisms on earth, is
being used to test drugs that combat
human illnesses. This is possible because
the sponge’s cells clump together when
stressed, similar to the way human
white blood cells respond to rheumatoid
arthritis and gout. The antiviral
compound idoxuridine and the antitumor
compound arabinosylcytidine were
developed from compounds found in a
West Indian sponge, and both are widely
used in Western medicine. Manoalide is
an anti-inflammatory derived from the
gray encrusting sponge. Another sponge
compound, halichondrin, shows activity
against leukemia and melanoma.
Discodermia dissoluta, a sponge found
in the Bahamas, contains a chemical
that is an effective immunosuppressor,
and other members of the sponge
family contain chemicals being used
experimentally as painkillers and anti-
inflammatory agents. Scientists at Harbor
Branch Oceanographic Institute have
isolated a substance from deep-water
Discodermia sponges that inhibits the
proliferation of cancer cells. The institute
has licensed this compound to Novartis,
and it is now in advanced preclinical trials.
BryozoanS
Another up-and-coming star in
marine biotechnology is bryostatin,
an anticancer drug from the bryozoan
Bugula neritina, a common invertebrate
“moss animal.” The organism grows
in shallow water almost anywhere, yet
only three known populations of Bugula
actually make bryostatin 1, a potent
drug involved in dozens of clinical trials
as a treatment for everything from
leukemia to kidney cancer. Bryostatin
has passed its initial safety tests and is
now undergoing human trials by Bristol-
Myers Squibb. Currently, physicians
working with the compound are
determining dosages. Once that is done,
large-scale testing will follow, eventually
leading to the drug’s general usage.
Sea Squirt
Scientists have unearthed several
promising drugs from sea creatures
called tunicates. More commonly known
as sea squirts, tunicates are a group of
marine organisms that spend most of
their lives attached to docks, rocks or the
undersides of boats. To the untrained
eye they look like nothing more than
small, colorful blobs, but tunicates are
evolutionarily more closely related to
vertebrates like ourselves than to most
other invertebrate animals. One tunicate
living on coral reefs and in mangrove
swamps in the West Indies turned out to
be the source of an experimental cancer
drug called ecteinascidin. PharmaMar, a
pharmaceutical company based in Spain,
now holds the licenses for ecteinascidin
743 (trabectedin, Yondelis
®
), which
was authorized by the European Union
in September 2007 for the treatment
of patients with advanced soft-tissue
sarcoma (tumors of the muscles,
tendons and supportive tissues).
upping the ante on Coral
reef ConServation
The wealth of pharmaceutical
miracles being found on coral reefs
increases the need for regulation and
conservation. In addition to climate
change, anthropogenic factors such
as marine pollution, elevated levels of
carbon dioxide and acidity, toxic fishing
methods and habitat destruction are
seriously affecting the health of coral
ecosystems. Reef communities are highly
susceptible to these impacts, and some
species are already beginning to decline,
degrade or migrate. Sylvia Earle, former
chief scientist at NOAA and an ardent
advocate for marine conservation, stated,
“An estimated 95 percent of the world’s
oceans remain unexplored, so it’s possible
that we might lose significant marine
organisms without ever knowing they
existed in the first place!”
Indeed, failure to preserve coral
reefs will result in a devastating loss of
biodiversity, which means fewer species
for future medical research
.
But with
diligent regulation and conservation, coral
reefs will continue to produce important
new breakthroughs, and the prospects
are intriguing. Medicines from the sea,
and particularly from coral reefs, are
ancient, potent and essentially unexploited
weapons in the fight against disease in
ways scientists are only beginning to
discover.
AD
Regulatory
Agencies
Given the large number of projects
under way to extract pharmaceutical
compounds from coral reefs, responsible
exploration protocols must be in place.
As such, important roles are played by
U.S. government regulatory agencies
including NOAA and the Office of Marine
Conservation (OMC). OMC is part of the
State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and
International Environmental and Scientific
Affairs and is responsible for dictating U.S.
policy on international issues concerning
management of living marine resources. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also protects
marine resources, and all coastal U.S. states
have monitoring agencies. Internationally,
there are laws prohibiting marine pollution,
and the CITES (Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora) treaty forbids the harvesting
or importing of endangered species.
Additionally, most countries have laws to
protect their own marine resources.
G E R I MURPH Y
r
a
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