Pharmaceutical Research/Product Development

[Electrobes]

I am curious to know about Pharmaceutical Research and Product Developement being done/used with corals and/or their by-products. Vaguely I can imagine that such corals like Palythoa Toxica (Or it's toxin palytoxin), sponges, seaweed, etc are being used in areas like medicine and the such.

I have been writing a Business Plan for quite a while for the retail market (Hobbyists), the wholesale market (Stores), but I want it to encompass all posibilities including the wholesale market to research institutions. In short I am writing a BP for a coral farm.

I've been trying to look for info on this subject, but unfortunately haven't found much. Does anyone here have an idea of where to point me to? Many thanks for reading

 

[greenbean36191]

Extracts from Pseudopterogoria are used extensively in cosmetics as anti-inflamatories or antibiotics. Prostaglandins have been harvested from Plexaura. From seaweed we get agar and carrageenan that are use extensively in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals as well as some halogenated organics being investigated as anti-cancer drugs. Spicules of some sponges are being studied for fiber optic development and sponge toxins are being studied as anti-cancer drugs. Super strong underwater glues derived from mussel byssal secretions are being developed.

Just give the Journal of Natural Products a browse and you'll find tons of uses.

 

[Electrobes]

Thanks greenbean. I will give that journal a try. I have found some other possible info... here's hoping the people will respond to my emails and not think I am some nutjob

BTW Greenbean.. I love that avatar of yours!

 

[iamwrasseman]

GREENBEAN
i know thats not you but you are a world of info as i have seen in the past year being on RC . i always thak heed to what you say and again more info you rock !

 

[sirrus6]

Corals themselves have not yielded much in the way of promising medicinal candidates, although there are a few. Sponges and other filter feeders are the real pharmacopeia of the natural world. Check out

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/kf/index.php

and the references in the back for an up-to-date account.

Ken F.

 

[Mache62]

I use products extracted from coral and or sea creatures as reagents in the lab. They are used as tools in R&D for the identification of new medicines.

 

[rexdenton]

Natural products divisions of major pharmaceutical companies were a cornerstone of product develpment for many years. Molecules such as varied as Lidocaine, cardiac channel blockers and several antibiotics derived a great deal of their origin from corals and or other marine products (in addition to terrestrial life as well).

That said, modern chemistry has evolved to a point where wholesale fermentation and/or culturing techniques are not commonly used for the manufacture of pharmacologically active substances. In addition, the molecular complexity of natural substances is often sufficiently complex (numerous side chain modifications, lipids, carbohydate substitutions, etc. that render common medicinal chemical appraches very difficult) that synthesis of a promising substance may be quite impossible using man-designed approaches. As a result of this fact (and the fact that extensive testing is typically required that requires large supplies of the molecule to be tested), it was, and is still common, to find man-made alternatives to molecules that were originally derived from natural sources.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree with rexdenton. Most pharma companies are not much interested in natural products these days, and most of the info comes from academics.

To add to his reasons, it is very difficult to optimize the structure of a complex natural product to make it better, since you cannot readily ask an organism to make 300 analogs substituting for a portion of the molecule that you do not think is best for some efficacy or toxicity reason. So unless the compound is good enough to be a drug right from discovery (very unlikely), then it will be hard to make it better.

Nearly all drug research these days involves purely synthetic molecules.

So while it is an often quoted mantra of the save the rainforest folks that there are all sorts of cures for diseases just waiting to be found, in reality, that just is not the future of drug discovery, at least as currently envisioned by industry. .

 

[rexdenton]

might get there eventually, but a long way off

might get there eventually, but a long way off

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14152551#post14152551 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Randy Holmes-Farley


Nearly all drug research these days involves purely synthetic molecules.

So while it is an often quoted mantra of the save the rainforest folks that there are all sorts of cures for diseases just waiting to be found, in reality, that just is not the future of drug discovery, at least as currently envisioned by industry. .

Yep, couple that with the fact that things in the environment did not evolve to be readily bioavailable drugs, and the situation becomes increasingly complicated.

Nature has had billions of years to sort through random evolutionary pressures to optimize a molecule useful in, say, defending a niche. By comparison, pharmaceutical fermentation technology is relatively basic, and mankind can generally rely only upon natural products as tools to find other similar active substances that are smaller and amenable to medicinal chemistry standard design approaches.

That said, looking toward the future, biologics will represent an increasing share of Pharmaceutically active substances and drugs. It is unlikely, in the near term, however, that the natural products found in nature would be optimal as drugs for the reasons you cite.

Maybe in the future we will be able to make really complex molecules, and optimize them as drugs. Right now, we are stuck mostly with small peptides and humanized antibodies for which technologies exist for commercial applications. There are new opportunities, though!