Marine pharmacognosy

Generally the drugs are obtained from the marine species of bacteria, virus, algae, fungi and sponges.

It was not until 2004 that the first FDA approval of a drug came directly from the sea: ziconotide, which was isolated from a marine cone snail.

With 79% of the Earth's surface covered by water, research into the chemistry of marine organisms is relatively unexplored and represents a vast resource for new medicines to combat major diseases such as cancer, AIDS or malaria.

Research typically focuses on sessile organisms or slow moving animals because of their inherent need for chemical defenses.

Over time, they have evolved many different mechanisms to survive the various harsh environments which include extreme temperatures, salinity, pressure, different levels of aeration and radiation, overcoming effects of mutation, and combating infection, fouling and overgrowth by other organisms.

Conus magus is an example of a cone snail that has a poisoned harpoon-like projectile which it uses to paralyze prey like small fish.

Some examples of invertebrates are sponges, coelenterates, tunicates, echinoderms, corals, algae, molluscs and bryozoans.

SCUBA diving is limited in the duration that divers can spend underwater when conducted from the surface.

The different steps required to obtain a biologically active compound are: Extraction, chromatographic purification, dereplication, structure elucidation and bioassay testing.

This can be performed using Liquid Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) data or Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) data obtained in the biological assay-guided process and then comparing the information to that found in databases of previously reported compounds.

Tandem Mass Spectrometry can also be useful, especially for large molecules like glycolipids, proteins, polysaccharides or peptides.

Completed characterization for publication purposes may require Infrared (IR), Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis), specific rotation and melting point data.

A common problem that plagues drug development is obtaining a sustainable supply of the compound.

Aqua culture is another alternative if the organism is readily grown otherwise, it may not be good sustainable source of a compound.

For example, ET-743 (INN name trabectedin, brand name Yondelis) can be isolated from the tunicate Ecteinascidia turbinata with a yield of 2 g per ton.