Although there are only a few marine derived products currently in the market, several new compounds from marine origin are now under clinical trials for drug development. While the marine world offers an extremely rich resource for novel compounds, it also represents a great challenge that requires multidisciplinary approach to bring the marine chemical diversity up to its therapeutic potential.

A program on “Development of Potential Drugs from the seas around India” is an ongoing project at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in collaboration with Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad, Advanced Centre for treatment, research and education in Cancer (ACTREC) and ten other laboratories. The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), New Delhi, supports this program. Under this program, therapeutic potential of several isolated and identified compounds have been explored and there are hopes of few of the lead compounds identified reaching the drug stage.

However, once the isolation and testing of such compounds progresses, a practical problem exists, namely, how to obtain a significant quantity of the compound. Unlike terrestrial organism that produces material in comparatively better yields, the collection and processing of the compounds from marine source ranges from grossly impractical to the utterly impossible due to availability in micro quantities. Hence, the elucidation of absolute structure of such active compounds is essential so that one can attempt their synthesis, in order to provide sufficient scope for evaluating and exploiting these compounds for the benefit of mankind.

Bioactive molecules are isolated and purified using the latest state-of-art technology in the field of natural product research.  Structural elucidation is affected using the most modern sophisticated instrumentation techniques which include Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR), Mass Spectroscopy (MS), etc.

In addition to studying bioactive compounds from marine macro-organisms, a lot of interest has now developed on studying compounds produced by marine microorganisms associated with the former.  Hence, this group is also actively involved in exploring and exploiting bioactive principle from associated marine microorganisms, which have equally or higher potential to yield novel molecules for drug applications and other industrial use.

• Collection of marine organisms and screening of their extracts for various biological activities
• Collection of marine organisms for their associated microorganisms.
• Screening for antimicrobial and antifouling
• Mass culture of associated fungi, isolation and structure elucidation of active and novel molecules
• MOU  with Nicholas Piramal India Limited on “Research Collaboration and Commercialisation in Microbial Technology”
• Identification of the blooms and chemical characterization of toxins using modern analytical tools

NIO has collaboration with Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry (ICB) of Council of National Research(CNR) of Italy. This collaboration involves search for biologically active molecules on the basis of defensive mechanism with special reference to relationship of nudibranch mollusc with sponge and algae. The work also includes study of their chemical ecology. This study will contribute to the wealth of secondary metabolites, largely defensive in function, that have interesting physiological effects and possible practical application. Here mention may be made of jorumycin, an isoquinoline alkaloid, exhibiting antitumor activity against cell lines derived from human solid tumors, such as human lung carcinoma, human colon carcinoma and human melanoma, and the like. It is also active against other tumor cell lines, like leukemia and lymphoma.  Presently Zalypsis® (PM00104/50), an analog of jorumycin, is in Phase I clinical trials in US for the treatment of solid tumors.

  A project "Exploring marine resources for bioactive compounds: from discovery to sustainable production and industrial applications" in short MAREX has been sanctioned by the European Commission under the collaborative FP7-KBBE-2009-3 project scheme with Prof Heikki Vuorela, University of Helsinki, Finland as project coordinator in a consortium of 19 participants.  Biodiversity in the seas is only partly explored, although marine organisms are excellent sources for many industrial products.  Through close cooperation between industrial and academic partners, this project will collect, isolate and classify marine organisms, such as micro and macroalgae, cyanobacteria, sea anemones, tunicates and fish from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as from the Mediterranean, Baltic and Arabian Seas. Extracts and purified compounds of these organisms will be studied for several therapeutically and industrially significant biological activities, including anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and anticoagulant activities by applying a wide variety of screening tools, as well as for ion channel/receptor modulation and plant growth regulation.  The purified bioactive compounds will be structurally characterised. Sustainable cultivation methods for promising organisms, and biotechnological processes for selected compounds will be developed, as well as biosensors for monitoring the target compounds.  The work will entail sustainable synthesis of selected active compounds and new derivatives and development of selected hits to lead compounds.  The project will expand marine compound libraries.  

A novel antibiotic, a cyclic peptide, effective against the bacteria S. aureus, S.epidermides, Enterococci, E.faceum, E. hirae, E. Faecails, B. subtilis, B. megaterium, B.firmus, Salmonella typhi,P. aeruginosa and Citrobacter diversus at nanogram levels has been identified from the Kocuria sp.  This patent is filed in US and PCT countries by NPIL and NIO researchers.