The ocean is a place of slow, rolling tides, gently gliding above the horizon, a wide expanse of dense, thick, blue water, encompassing diverse organisms ranging from colorful fish to minuscule microbes. It is a calm and peaceful reserve. Murky and opaque, the ocean still conceals much from humanity; science has yet to find the true treasure buried deep within the massive depth of the ocean—its potential for medicine. Its potential lies within its stationary algae strapped to the floor, its potential lies within its minute microbes unseen to the human eye, and its potential lies within its wide range of animals, from bright, yellow sponges, to vivid, orange coral. While medicine derived from terrestrial sources has declined in both effectiveness
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In comparison to traditional terrestrial environments, the ocean has essentially remained unexplored and contains vast reserves of organisms and chemical compounds. Specifically, the ocean has the properties of a pipeline as it can produce a continuous stream of drugs for a changing pharmaceutical and pathogenic landscape. Researchers from the University and Mississippi and Maryland note the importance of oceanic microbes as potential drug sources due to their ability to provide various parts and compounds for drug production. These microbes, mixing pots of diverse elements, hold novel chemical combinations lacking elsewhere in nature— extracting and utilizing these compounds would allow for medicine to utilize new approaches and new methods to treat old infections and old illnesses. For example, the molecule Cyanosafracin B from P. Fluorescens is a key component of the anti-cancer drug Trabectedin. Not only constant, these pathways are sustainable; sustainably entails maximizing the efficiency of a resource while still preserving it for later use: oceanic drug discovery meets these requirements by requiring only small production sample sizes leaving many resources relatively untouched. As science unravels modern and more advanced bacteria species and diseases, researchers can reliably turn toward the ocean to search for and produce new drugs. The ocean’s size, versatility, and genetic diversity all lend it to be especially apt for medicinal discovery (Waters et
In comparison to traditional terrestrial environments, the ocean has essentially remained unexplored and contains vast reserves of organisms and chemical compounds. Specifically, the ocean has the properties of a pipeline as it can produce a continuous stream of drugs for a changing pharmaceutical and pathogenic landscape. Researchers from the University and Mississippi and Maryland note the importance of oceanic microbes as potential drug sources due to their ability to provide various parts and compounds for drug production. These microbes, mixing pots of diverse elements, hold novel chemical combinations lacking elsewhere in nature— extracting and utilizing these compounds would allow for medicine to utilize new approaches and new methods to treat old infections and old illnesses. For example, the molecule Cyanosafracin B from P. Fluorescens is a key component of the anti-cancer drug Trabectedin. Not only constant, these pathways are sustainable; sustainably entails maximizing the efficiency of a resource while still preserving it for later use: oceanic drug discovery meets these requirements by requiring only small production sample sizes leaving many resources relatively untouched. As science unravels modern and more advanced bacteria species and diseases, researchers can reliably turn toward the ocean to search for and produce new drugs. The ocean’s size, versatility, and genetic diversity all lend it to be especially apt for medicinal discovery (Waters et