In the field of pharmaceutical development, there is a problem. Nearly half of all new drugs are derived from terrestrial microorganisms, but because the soil has been exploited to the limit, there are few drugs left to discover. This has forced pharmaceutical companies to abandon many of their soil-based research and development programs and search for new drugs in other locations, such as the ocean. The good news is that the prospect of finding a new drug in the ocean, especially among coral reef species, may be 300-400 times more likely than isolating one from a terrestrial ecosystem. Although terrestrial organisms exhibit great species diversity, marine organisms have greater phylogenetic diversity. In fact, thousands of marine species have never been studied and the potential of these marine organisms as sources of medicines has created a renaissance of interest in exploring the deep ocean.
Keywords
- Bone Graft
- Marine Natural Product
- Federal Drug Administration
- Marine Biotechnology
- Marine Coral
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.