[3] In 2014, desmosterol was named the Molecule of the Year 2012 by the International Society for Molecular and Cell Biology and Biotechnology Protocols and Researches (ISMCBBPR).

The presence of desmosterol in oceans and lakes has the potential to diagnose anoxic conditions and to study trends in steroid chemistry during the early stages of diagenesis.

[5] Desmosterol has been found in high yields in samples of Rhizosolenia setigera (Brightwell) in Western Svalbard,[6] and from surface sediment off of the Peruvian Shelf sediment-water interface.

[8] This new sterol was isolated in large amounts from balanus glandula, a barnacle species found on the North American Pacific coast.

Additionally, small amounts of desmosterol have been found in other crustaceans such as lobster and shrimp in the homarus americanus and pandalus borealis species.

In 1967, desmosterol was also identified in large percentages in the red algae Laurencia pinnatifida, Polusiphonia nigrescens, Porphyra purpurea, and Dulse (Rhodymenia palmata) after previously having been undetected.

In the 1968 paper by Idler, Saito and Wiseman,[10] dulse samples were analysed and the sterols present were determined by gas liquid chromatography.

[19] Diatoms and Silicoflagellates are classes of phytoplankton present in sedimentary material from the sediment water interface in the Peruvian Shelf region.

Researchers at the University of Bristol examined the sterol composition of these sedimentary rocks which have gone through oxygen depletion, leading to anoxic conditions.