Marine biotechnology has a reformative role in contemporary drug discovery in exploring the rich marine chemical pool of marine organisms. The oceans occupy over three-quarters of the planet and are a habitat to organisms that are adaptable to extreme conditions; like high pressure, low temperatures, and scarce light. In order to cope with it, these organisms synthesize distinct bioactive compounds that are absent in life on land. The algae, tunicates, marine sponges, and bacteria are promising sources of anticancer, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial molecules.
Some of the compounds of marine origin have already found their way to clinical practice. As an example, anticancer drugs have been based on compounds that have been extracted out of sea sponges, and marine bacteria have produced effective antibiotics to deal with resistant infections.
In an effort to utilize these compounds in therapeutic applications, marine biotechnology combines molecular biology, genomics, and bioprocessing methodologies to isolate, characterize, and optimize these compounds.
As antimicrobial resistance increases and traditional drug pipelines fail to bring success, marine biotechnology is a promising alternative.
However, new instruments such as metagenomics and synthetic biology enable researchers to examine unculturable marine organisms and improve the creation of compounds. Therefore, the ocean is not only a biodiversity hotspot but also the key lineage of the next-generation medicines.
MBH/PS