Objectives:
- To create a strong multidisciplinary research environment for the discovery of bioactive molecules from marine organisms and their associated microbes having applications in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, industrial products and biotechnological tools
General description: Bioprospecting for new molecules in marine systems is still in its infancy. The ocean hosts the richest diversity of life-forms and offers a largely untapped source of molecules with unknown physiological and ecological functions. In recent years, a significant number of novel metabolites with potent pharmacological properties have been discovered from the marine organisms. Due to resistance of the pathogens to the existing drugs and also due to the more and more powerful mutants, there exists all the more need to look for compounds with stronger biological activities.
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.
Scientific components and achievements:
- 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 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.
Facilities available: Well equipped bio-organic laboratory with following facilities:
- PADI trained divers and scuba equipment for the collection of intertidal and subtidal marine organisms
- Lyophilisers and vacuum concentrators for freezedrying of marine organisms, their extracts and fractions
- Rotavapors and vacuum pumps to prepare the extracts and fractions
- Purification of secondary metabolites using HPLC
- Characterisation of the bioactive molecules with the modern sophisticated equipments like Polarimeter, UV-VIS, FTIR, FTNMR and QSTAR XL MS/MS
The above mentioned facilities are made available to students from Colleges, Universities and Industries in Goa
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