Bioactive marine compounds: Discovery, ecology and application

Marine Bioproducts project at the Australian Institute of Marine Science has been involved in a number of large scale collections of marine organisms to provide source material for drug discovery programs. These collections, and the downstream research, have often involved collaborations with scientists and research organisations in a number of countries. This presentation will review some of these collections, highlighting the bioactive compounds that have emerged from various research collaborations. As a result of collections over a number of years, the project has assembled a large and valuable database of field, ecological, taxonomic and screening data. The volume of data enables us to predict the most productive areas to be investigated, and to guide future collections. Access to biodiversity has become a controversial issue. While this complicates bioprospecting efforts, it is essential that protection of the rights of source countries be taken into account from the earliest concept stages. During the course of our collections, we encounter many interesting ecological phenomena which cry out for investigation. We have been able to do this in a small number of cases, and some of these will be highlighted. Drugs from the Sea has been the catchcry of marine natural products chemists for many years. For a long time, the yield of compounds in development as drugs was disappointing. Now however, a number of compounds are in development as anticancer agents and other products. Marine organisms can be the basis of many applications apart from drugs. Microorganisms may prove to be an even more fertile source of novel metabolites than the macroorganisms which have mainly been investigated in the past. Finally the presentation will briefly describe the present program which is being conducted in partnership with AMRAD, an Australian pharmaceutical company based in Melbourne.