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Scientists at isle Chemists and marine scientists attending an international meeting in Honolulu are looking to the ocean as one of the last possible sources of drugs from nature.
meeting laud ocean
as drug source
They also honor a UH professor
as the 'father of marine
natural products'By Helen Altonn
Star-BulletinThe future holds great promise for treatments "because of the massive nature of the world's oceans and the huge number of organisms that reside there," William Fenical, marine chemist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., said. "More importantly, the genetic uniqueness of marine life leads to novel chemical substances with enormous potential."
Fenical is among those attending the International Chemical Congress of Pacific Basin Societies and participated in a Pacifichem 2000 Webcast Thursday on "The World's Oceans -- Medicine Chest of the Future."
Others were Murray Munro of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, N.Z., and Nobohiru Fusetani, University of Tokyo.
Munro discussed his work on a series of possible anti-cancer compounds, halichondrins, from a sponge. He's developing them with help from the National Cancer Institute in the United States, Fenical said.
Fusetani described new drug discoveries from marine life in Japan and focused on molecules that have interesting properties to inhibit enzymes and treat a number of diseases.
Because of the difficulty of accessing and working in the ocean, Fenical said, early researchers looking for drugs turned to rain forests and the terrestrial environment for resources.
"By far, the biodiversity of our planet lies in the ocean, but this is not very well expressed or well accepted by people."
Of 36 phyla, or fundamental subdivisions of life, on the planet, only 17 occur on land, Fenical noted. "So over twice the number of genetically diverse life forms live in the sea," he said.
But the biodiversity of the oceans has been dramatically overlooked because scientists don't have a strong understanding of it, he said. Also, they aren't represented in biodiversity discussions, which are generally controlled by the rain forest people, Fenical said.
However, he said, the ocean is "a superior source of plants, animals and microbes and this source is now reaching the point where they are being explored for new drugs."
Fenical, who works on microorganisms in the ocean, said one of the reasons he attended the congress was to honor Paul Scheuer, a University of Hawaii professor of chemistry recognized as "the father of marine natural products."
"When I started in this field of science, Paul had already established it. He was already contributing and developing this field of science in Hawaii," he said.
Scheuer was honored in a ceremony yesterday at the Sheraton Hawaii.
A Scheuer symposium will be held today and tomorrow at the Hilton Hawaiian Village featuring the latest research on marine natural products.
"All his ex-students and colleagues are coming to give him best wishes and present work dedicated to him," Fenical said.
About 10,000 scientists are attending the meetings, sponsored by the American Chemical Society, Chemical Society of Japan, Canadian Society for Chemistry, New Zealand Institute of Chemistry and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.
Fenical said the groups have made extra efforts "to present their best work in honor of Paul Scheuer and to bring some new ideas and speak to the future here at this meeting. I think that's different than a normal chemical society meeting."
The scientists are presenting about 8,000 papers at the sessions, continuing through tomorrow at different hotels.