Address correspondence to: Abel Baerga-Ortiz, Ph D, Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus, PO Box 365067, San Juan Puerto Rico 00936. tel: 787-758-2525 ext. 1603 • Fax: 787-274-8724 • email: [email protected] Marine ecosystems are a source of biologically active compounds, many of which are currently in clinical use. With the goal o...

Organotins, especially tributyltins (TBT) are highly toxic to many marine organisms. These compounds are introduced in marine waters by ship trafficking, ship scrapping activities, as antifouling compounds and sewage disposal. Marine fishes, crustaceans and molluscans are easily prone to organotins contamination. In view of this, a baseline monitoring study was conducted in order to establish t...

Increased incidences of antimicrobial resistance and the emergence of pan-resistant 'superbugs' have provoked an extreme sense of urgency amongst researchers focusing on the discovery of potentially novel antimicrobial compounds. A strategic shift in focus from the terrestrial to the marine environment has resulted in the discovery of a wide variety of structurally and functionally diverse bioa...

The marine environment is an important source of structurally-diverse and biologically-active secondary metabolites. During the last two decades, thousands of compounds were discovered in marine organisms, several of them having inspired the development of new classes of therapeutic agents. Marine mollusks constitute a successful phyla in the discovery of new marine natural products (MNPs). Ove...

Nonribosomal peptides from marine Bacillus strains have received considerable attention for their complex structures and potent bioactivities. In this study, we carried out PCR-based genome mining for potential nonribosomal peptides producers from our marine bacterial library. Twenty-one "positive" strains were screened out from 180 marine bacterial strains, and subsequent small-scale fermentat...

Cancer is considered as one of the deadliest diseases in the medical field. Apart from the preventive therapies, it is important to find a curative measure which holds no loopholes and acts accurately and precisely to curb cancer. Over the past few decades, there have been advances in this field and there are many antitumor compounds available on the market, which are of natural as well as synt...

BACKGROUND Natural products are considered a rich source of new chemical structures that may lead to the therapeutic agents in all major disease areas. About 50% of the drugs introduced in the market in the last 20 years were natural products/derivatives or natural products mimics, which clearly shows the influence of natural products in drug discovery. RESULTS In an effort to further support...

During 2003 and 2004, marine pharmacology research directed towards the discovery and development of novel anti-tumour agents was published in 163 peer-reviewed articles. The purpose of this review is to present a structured assessment of the anti-tumour and cytotoxic properties of 150 marine natural products, many of which are novel compounds that belong to diverse structural classes, includin...

Even before the development of the idea to exploit marine biomolecules for human needs (pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, etc.), the interest for such compounds is implicit when one ponders the astonishingly basic definition of marine biotechnology as " a natural extension of cultural practices of garnering food from the ocean " by the anthropologist Helmreich who beautifully summarizes the origins o...

Marine organisms have been proven to be excellent sources of environmentally benign biogenic compounds. These metabolites have received much attention because of their pharmacological and antifouling activites. Biofouling process is known to cause serious problems to the submerged structures. Many countries have ratified an international treaty to ban the application of antifouling coatings bas...