Earning from the Sea: The Current Status of the Biotechnology of Drugs from the Sea

Abstract

BThe technological use of natural products is as old as humanity, although mixtures of unknown composition were mostly used before the advent of chemistry. Mummification in ancient Egypt is one such example. In contrast, that of the Phoenician Tyrian Purple was an advanced technology based on a practically pure substance^ (Pietra, 2002a). This promising start, from the chemical, biological, and economical points of view, of marine biotechnology on the southern Mediterranean coast about 1600 B.C. was not followed by any other enterprise — apart from low-technology fish oil — until Bergmann’s work with sponge lipids and nucleosides in the 1950s in the United States. Although Bergmann’s work was not immediately followed by that of others because of difficulties in separating and identifying metabolites in very small amounts, his nucleosides served as models for the synthesis of anticancer drugs such as Cytarabine and antiviral drugs such as Vidarabine. It was only 30 years after Bergmann’s era, with the advent of highperformance liquid chromatography (HPLC), 13 Cnuclear magnetic resonance ( 13 C-NMR), and soft mass techniques, that studies of natural marine products began in earnest. The 1970 –1980s were indeed an important period for organic chemistry, thriving on novel marine natural products similar to the initial attention on plant metabolites. Although the great period of metabolite identification through degradation, attended by a cascade of new chemistry, was over, the invention of new chemical reactions now came from the reconstruction of metabolites via chemical synthesis, and this continues apace to the present time. These marine studies were directed not only to the search for new drugs, but, in a continuation of the Phoenician drive, also for new technological compounds (such as adhesive proteins and agricultural agents) and laboratory tools (such as fluorescent proteins). Not bound by the stringent regulations for drug approval, they were rapidly accepted, notably green fluorescent protein from a jellyfish and a wide range of big-business analogues, which have revolutionized the way molecular biology is carried out. With powerful new techniques for purification