Development of Marine Drugs and Natural Products

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Natural products are believed to have the advantage of having enormous structural and chemical diversity, increased protein binding characteristics (due to complex structure) and specific biological activity. Also these serve as good lead compounds suitable for further modification. Bioactive compounds from marine flora and fauna have extensive past and present use in the treatment of many diseases and serve as compounds of interest both in their natural form and as templates for synthetic modification. Several molecules isolated from various marine organisms (microorganisms, algae, fungi, invertebrates, and vertebrates) are currently under study at an advanced stage of clinical trials, some of them have already been marketed as drugs.

Increasing marine biodiversity preservation and research programs throughout the world are a definite sign that the world is getting ready for a new variety of pharmaceutical compounds that would be fighting a broad spectrum of diseases. With an estimated 70% organisms to be investigated, pharmaceutical companies hope to find a cure for high-risk and fatal diseases in the coming years. Marine organisms are expected to be viable for production of drug compounds, biomaterials, nutritional supplements, and several types of algae are being used for the production of alcohol as an energy source.