Coral reefs could provide the medicines of tomorrow

From an article by Henrylito D. Tacio posted on People and Planet:

“Marine sources could be the major source of drugs for the next decade,” says Dr. William Fenical, an American natural products chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.

In Japan’s reefs - one of the most studied coral coasts in the world - there is a chemical called kainic acid, which is used as a diagnostic chemical to investigate Huntington’s chorea, a rare but fatal disease of the nervous system.

Coral reefs also produce a natural sunscreen, which is now being marketed to sell as a sunscreen in the United States. The porous limestone skeleton of coral is now being tested as bone grafts in humans.

“If used properly, the reefs of the entire world can better serve humans with medicine rather than with food,” some researchers claim. “Half the potential pharmaceuticals being explored are from the oceans, many from coral reef ecosystems,” estimates the US State Department.

Writing in Reef Research, Dr. Patrick Colin, a marine biologist, described the hopes that had led him to spend the 1990s collecting marine samples in the Pacific for the US National Cancer Institute (NCI).

“Over the years, the NCI has been screening terrestrial plants and marine organisms worldwide for bioactivity against cancer and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and has come up with a number of hot prospects, a number of which are in clinical trials,” Dr. Colin says.

“Many coral reef species produce chemicals like histamines and antibiotics used in medicine and science,” reports The Nature Conservancy, an organization whose mission is to preserve plants, animals and natural communities by protecting the lands and waters needed for their survival.