Scientists Search Deep Sea Reefs for Wonder Drugs

ScienceDaily is reporting that a team of scientists will be venturing some 2000-3000 feet below the ocean surface in order to explore deep-sea reefs discovered last December. From the article: "A primary goal of the upcoming expedition, which is funded largely by the State of Florida's 'Florida Oceans Initiative,' will be to search for marine organisms that produce chemical compounds with the potential to treat human diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's."

Comments

Curse of the Blue Gold

[eldavojohn]

First off, this isn't really 'news' as it is an alarm. When a new coral reef is discovered, we aren't sending people to look for new species or attempting to preserve it ... instead we're sending people to take samples to see if we can benefit medically from the reef.

Modern man has an impeccable record for destroying the natural environment that produces his fruits & resources. Then we sit and bitch about how it went away. Reefs are probably going to be no different. They're harder to get at, but if the run-off doesn't destroy them, I'm sure our medical companies will.

There's a report written by the UN University that details the problems being raised by this treasure of "blue gold."

Significantly, the ratio of potentially useful natural compounds to compounds screened is higher in marinesourced materials than with terrestrial organisms. There is, therefore, a higher probability of commercial success. Potential applications for marine organisms include: pharmaceuticals; enzymes; cryoprotectants; cosmaceuticals; agrichemicals; bioremediators; nutraceuticals; and fine chemicals. All the major pharmaceutical firms, including Merck, Lilly, Pfizer, Hoffman-Laroche and Bristol-Myers Squibb, have marine biology departments. Estimates put worldwide sales of marine biotechnology-related products at US$ 100 billion for the year 2000. Profits from a compound derived from a sea sponge to treat herpes were estimated to be worth US$ 50 million to US$ 100 million annually, and estimates of the value of anti-cancer agents from marine organisms are up to US$ 1 billion a year.

One of the interesting sources it cites is Blue Genes: Sharing and Conserving the World's Aquatic Biodiversity (another interesting document on the global problem of sharing the world's oceans).

Hypothetical scenario time! So, Pfizer's scientists find that a fairly common sponge produces a natural chemical that slows the growth of cancer. Unfortunately, each sponge only produces an ounce of this chemical when refined and there is no way to naturally synthesize it on a mass scale. Pfizer tries to buy the rights to harvest the sponge at a restricted rate in Florida. But they have to get permits from the local, state & federal governments and it costs them a lot of money because they send people down to the reef to hand pick the sponges. Instead, they find a supplier in a third world country (possibly around Indonesia) that promises them mass quantities of the sponge at a reduced rate. Now, the government there forbids it too but an official receives a large sum from this company and suddenly Pfizer has got incoming shipments of the sponge. The problem is that the company working for Pfizer is doing so with total blatant disregard for the ecosystem & probably its workers.

A farfetched scenario? Or something that's happened so often in the past, we'd be naïve to imagine it to stop here?

Re:Curse of the Blue Gold

[fain0v]

Even if you could sythesize anything that nature can make, there isnt enough matter in the universe to make every small molecule that might be of interest to medicinal chemists. So how do you screen out the useless molecules and find ones that might have an effect on a druggable target? You use millions of years of evolution to your advantage and isolate compounds made by organisms. These "natural products" can be used to do high-throughput screening on your drug target.

Here is a lab that does this.
http://www.umich.edu/~lsi/institute/labs/sherman/s ponge.html

Re:Curse of the Blue Gold

[archeopterix]

Any chemical that can be synthesized biologically should be perfectly capable of being synthesized in-vitro.

Synthesized in-vitro? Perhaps.

Synthesized in-vitro on a commercial scale? Look at Taxol. It took over 20 years to design a commercially viable synthesis method.

Galanthamine? To my knowledge, no commercially viable method exists.

Re:Curse of the Blue Gold

[Red Flayer]

"Any chemical that can be synthesized biologically should be perfectly capable of being synthesized in-vitro."

Should be != is. Particularly since development of the process for complex compunds can be extrmely expensive.

"Any protein can be cloned and synthesized en masse."

Protein folding is still a tricky business for a lot of proteins, and not necessarily reproducible in a lab. Plus, you've got to isolate the gene(s) responsible for the protein production, successfully insert them into bacteria or yeast to produce a viable colony, and then ferment them. By no means automatic. It's not a simple matter of 'cloning' a protein.

Cost is also a huge issue. As the GP alludes to, the availability of a cheap supply will often preclude synthetic production -- regardless of whether that supply is truly cheap in the long run (i.e., in his example, the public value of the reefs/natural sponges in the environment is not included in the cost equation for the drug company).

Sure, as the natural supply becomes more limited, it gets more expensive, and synthesis of the compound becomes an economically viable alternative for the company. But in the meanwhile, overharvesting of a natural resource can have pretty dire consequences.

This is pretty common, actually

[Dr.Enormous]

If you read biology journals, you'll see that just about every third or fourth paper consists of "we pureed some sea sponge in a blender and extracted this compound. And look, it kills cancer cells (*cough* and non-cancerous cells too *cough*)!" The only thing different here is a somewhat deeper venue for collection. (this isn't to say that it's not important scientific work, just that it's rather commonplace and rarely leads to much of anything)

Sea Exploration

[gmiley]

We really need to get back on this train. Oceanography wasn't really even around until relatively recent times. Even once it started catching on, it quickly died off. To date, one of our biggest contributions to oceanography and marine biology has been the H.M.S. Challenger in the 1870's, it's three year mission to explore strange... well, nevermind you get the picture. Sure we have made some large steps since then, but nothing that comes close.

Reef Etiquette

[schweinhund]

For those who are not familiar with coral reefs and may go for a casual snorkel or swim sometime, please do not physically touch the coral itself as this kills it. Because of this, federal law requires swimmers to wear flotation jackets when nearby to avoid contact.

It takes 30,000 years to grow 1 cubic inch of coral, and the mistreatment of the reefs around Florida (1960s dynamite fishing, jewelry harvesting, etc.) has made it so that the reef off of the Florida Keys is the last living coral reef in the region.

Re:Reef Etiquette

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

It takes 30,000 years to grow 1 cubic inch of coral,

Source?

I thought it was more like 1/2 inch per year

Re:Reef Etiquette

[gmiley]

Just a quick google search found:

Ariel Roth of the Geoscience Research Institute has commented on the fact that estimates of net reef growth rates vary from 0.8 millimetres per year to 80 millimetres per year, whereas actual measurements based on soundings at depth are many times these estimates.3 Roth suggests a number of reasons for this difference.

source And from Wikipedia:

Formation of the calciferous exoskeleton involves deposition of calcium carbonate by the polyps from calcium ions isolated from seawater. The rate of deposition, while varying greatly between species and environmental conditions, can be as much as 10 g / m2 of polyp / day (0.3 ounce / sq yd / day). This is however hugely dependent on light, with production reduced by 90% at night compared to the middle of the day[6].

source

Humans are not that unique in the world

[BinaryOne]

The fact is, most of the health problems (or most of the problems, period) we face as humans, ie: cellular degeneration, bacterial infections, etc. have some analog in other forms of nature.

The production of antibiotics by fungi and other bacteria to reduce the population of competing organisms has been honed by centuries of evolution. If preserved, supported and studied the processes, and the compounds are there to be used.

The science is slow and tedious, but many of the cultures that live in these rich habitats are well versed in the properties of the flora they have around them.

Scientists Search Deep Sea Reefs for Wonder Drugs

[slushbat]

Of all the stupid places to drop your stash of wonder drugs over the side of the boat.

Human Papilloma Virus

[TerranFury]

Actually, you'd be surprised. Nothing gets into your cells and screws up your DNA like a virus.

Have you heard of HPV (Human Papilloma Virus)? It's a very-common (family) of sexually-transmitted viruses. We've known for a long time that certain types of HPV are the cause of cervical and ovarian cancer in women and testicular cancer in men (e.g.: these cancers are STDs), and more recent research has shown that HPV is also linked to certain forms of skin cancer.

In other words: Yes, cancer can be and often is caused by infectious diseases!

Notice to all sea sponges: Don't panic

[paiute]

Although it may seem that if a promising drug is found in a deep sea organism, the rapacious drug companies will get all Constant Gardener on them and start the dredging, that is not how it goes. If a compound is isolated from a sponge that had some desirable bioactivity in humans, that compound is isolated and its stucture is determined. Now the reason this compound has some activity in humans - a species the sponge has had no evolutionary contact with - is most usually due to the way some corner of the chemical sticks into a receptor or enzyme in the mammalian cell. This corner, by no means the whole thing, is called a pharmaphore - the actual working part of the molecule. The rest of the compound is unnecessary. The drug company doesn't need to waste money making that part, or squeezing out gallons of sponge juice. They set their hundreds of medicinal chemists to work preparing a simpler, easier to manufacure, compound that contains the necessary pharmaphore.